I’ve been absolutely stunned by the initial reaction to Galaxy Zoo; so many emails with so many fantastic images. Perhaps my favourite, found by beccamecca13 whoever she (or he) may be, is below, but there’s lots more where that came from. We’re on BBC News and if your hands strayed toward the ‘email your friends’ button let’s just say that would be appreciated.
Update: We’re being slightly swamped. Please keep telling people about the site, but bear with us if you can’t see any galaxies. We’ll upgrade as soon as possible.
Alice Sheppard on July 11, 2007
Yes, indeed, that “timeout, you didn’t see/classify this in time so we give up on you” (I paraphrase!) thing appears very rapidly. So sad. Want my galaxies!
kevin on July 11, 2007
What will you all do when quite easily 30,000 people sign up with the press exposure (BBC) and word of mouth?
30k * 10 / day = 300k
300k * 365 = 109.5 million
How many repetitive analysis of the same galaxy do you need before you can reach a strong conclusion about whether its turning clockwise or counter clockwise?
1 million galaxies isn’t a very hard number to reach. I believe you will get that many queries within a few weeks.
Alice Sheppard on July 11, 2007
I noticed that too. If 20,000 people sign up they only get 50 each (multiply that by how many different people will be shown each galaxy; for example each one gets shown to 3 people = 150 each). I’d love to do many, many times more than that. It’s like playing cards, only much more beautiful and lets me completely space out! (No pun intended, of course.)
Maile on July 11, 2007
Ok, I’m completely jealous of the person who got that particular image, its amazing.
You need to warn people just how addictive this is! Its dangerous! Although it is keeping me from banging my head on the desk during work when I’m on hold for the zillionth time.
This whole project is just really impressive and a lot of fun, even for we mere mortals. I do hope you won’t be staking your reputations on my classifications – I’m sure I’m classifying a blob as a blur from time to time.
Random aside, I like the American term “counter-clockwise” better than “anti-clockwise”. The latter just sounds so confrontational…..I mean what do you have against clockwise???
Anyway, great site and thanks for the opportunity!
Maile
chrislintott on July 11, 2007
We have plans which are rapidly being rewritten. Suffice it to say that no effort will be wasted, and that we’ll keep you informed. While I don’t have the latest numbers, I would guess we’re 10% toward the first million already. This is phenomenal, and all I will say is thank you.
Jacetheace on July 11, 2007
Just wondered what was meant by
“If you find something REALLY unusual or strange and it does look like anything in the how to get started” section, then drop us an email with the reference number.”
The above image is special but what other things would be worth reporting?
Ann Croft on July 12, 2007
Hello, I’m really enjoying the programme and managed to find a pink pulsar which I saved the picture and uploaded here: http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/anniebarrnone/album?.dir=f26fre2
I didn’t know how to report a pulsar though so I clicked “Star/Don’t know”
Great programme Chris and thanks for allowing us to participate. Annie
Kevin McNulty on July 12, 2007
Really pleased to be able to contribute to this project last night the missus pretty well had to drag me off the laptop it’s surprising how relaxing this really is despite being what is mundane work.
Ann Croft on July 12, 2007
I would really like to know what this green line is: http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/anniebarrnone/detail?.dir=f26fre2&.dnm=64e3re2.jpg
Galaxy Ref: 588297864188264490
SkyServer Object Explorer analysis:
http://cas.sdss.org/astro/en/tools/explore/obj.asp?id=588297864188264490
Thanks,
Annie
chrislintott on July 12, 2007
That’s what a satellite looks like as it goes past.
Stuart Atkinson on July 12, 2007
Wrote this about “Galaxy Zoo”… mega congratulations on the stunning success of the project so far!
http://journals.aol.com/stuartatk/TheVerse/entries/2007/07/12/galaxy-zoo/778
Alice Sheppard on July 12, 2007
Aha, I was wondering what on earth those blue and green lines were. I was making a note of them as “doubtless man-made interference but WHAT ON EARTH . . . ?”
What about the uniform pink, orange or bright red backgrounds? Presumably way over-magnified? I’m calling them Star/Don’t know!
I love the “Hi Alice” that appears in the top left-hand corner when I log in. Isn’t it a sweet site? Can’t wait for the discussion forum to be open; can we share images of the really good ones?
Alice Sheppard on July 12, 2007
Come to think of it, Annie, I just checked your pictures and the poor zookeepers will have a tough time, because I wouldn’t have called all your mergers mergers. Merger 3 for instance just looks like one perhaps a long way behind/in front of the other. Perhaps I’m just too blind to see the interaction? What should we be looking for?
Steve Gannon on July 12, 2007
Hello Chris!
Thanks so much for the opportunity we all have been given to assist with your research. Very cool stuff here! A few questions though:
It appears that quite a few images that resemble ellipticals, are actually out of focus spirals. How will you go about sorting out the miss-identified classifications? I have been classifying round blobs as edge on spirals, elongated blobs as elliptical.
I have noted that a large percentage ( > %95) of images are red shifted blobs or quite out of focus. Are we to classify as Star / Don’t know?
Thanks again and great job!
Kevin McNulty on July 12, 2007
Poor site is not working tonight ( more weight than a nuetron star!) so went through the disciplines again and still get confused as to what is merging and spiral and eliptical and feel bad marking star don’t know, will our mistakes corrupt the final results? Love this project big time. Oh well site is down the missus will be pleased.
chrislintott on July 12, 2007
Given the success we’ve had, we’ll eventually get multiple classifications of each object. Please make the best guess you can about the central object, whenever you can. Don’t know should be abutton of last resort.
TJ on July 13, 2007
After doing a couple hundred I was starting to burn out … suddenly there was a kelly-green star in the foreground. Whoa! Many of the images are quite blurry, but (imagine the distance!) in some cases that adds to the mystery. Oh yeah … being the first to see these things: who *knows* what you might find? Hooked!
emily on July 14, 2007
erm, hi Ann Croft. Just looked at your piccies and this is a friendly note to say “read the tutorial again”. You’re classifying loads of galaxies as “mergers” and they’re not. there just a galaxy with another galaxy or star apparently close in the picture! the important thing to determine if they are merging or not is if they are obviously interacting, gravitationally in any way. Otherwise they are not merging. I think you need to read the tutorial anyway, because I notice you asked “what is the green line”, well that is carefully explained in the tutorial as being a satelite track. this is just friendly advice, i’m only saying this because its important to get these classifications as good as possible, and mergers are relatively rare. i guess you were just excited to get started! i know i was.
Maile on July 16, 2007
Emily,
I’d like to point out that Part 3 of the tutorial was definitely NOT there when I started classifying. I, like Ann, had questions about the green streaks and emailed asking about them. Obviously this was a common point of confusion since the galaxy zoo people added a whole section into the tutorial.
However, your post did make me curious about what in the tutorial could possibly have answered my green streak question. I actually still had the tutorial open in a window from the beginning of last week, so I hit refresh and BOOM, there was the section. So you were right, it was definitely good to go back and read the tutorial again since they have added some additional and helpful information.
I’ve found mergers to be particularly tricky in part, I think, to the fact that, in the tutorial, the top middle picture in 1C “merging galaxies” looks similar to the bottom middle picture in 2B which is identified as an anti-clockwise spiral. I actually wrote to ask about this and received the following extremely helpful reply from Dr. Kate Land:
I think the trick is to look closely at the
centre of the picture and the flow of the arms – a spiral will have
just one nucleus and symmetric arms continuously running from one to the
other. While a merger will be a bit more messy – different looking arms
(not symmetric) and a blotchy nucleus.
Thought I would pass that on in case it helps anyone else with mergers!
Happy classifying, and thanks to Chris and the other folks for the added information on the tutorial page. Its very helpful and it is always good to know that you guys are listening and responding to feedback.
Ann Croft on July 17, 2007
The tutorial was updated after I asked the question!
The pictures I’m saving for my son’s use, they’re not necessarily what I classed them as when using Galaxy Zoo. Sorry for the confusion.
Ann Croft on July 17, 2007
http://cas.sdss.org/astro/en/tools/chart/chart.asp?ra=177.15779398&dec=56.94754443
Would you approve of that as a merger, emily?