Help the identify galaxies for science on Galaxy Zoo
This caught my eye on Read/Write Web:
A new project from the University of Oxford (UK), the University of Portsmouth (UK) and Johns Hopkins University (US) aims to harness the power of the human brain to identify and classify galaxies and stars. On the Galaxy Zoo website, users are asked to identify the objects in photographs as spiral or elliptical galaxies, the direction of rotation, or if the photo depicts a star or merger of galaxies. The site launched yesterday and says they have already had an “amazing response.”
“The human brain is actually better than a computer at pattern recognition tasks like this. Whether you spend five minutes, fifteen minutes or five hours using the site your contribution will be invaluable,” said Kevin Schawinski of Oxford University of the project. Source: Outsource Your Brain for Science
I went over to Galaxy Zoo to sign up. After you register they walk you through what different kinds of galaxies and non-galaxies look like. I thought I pretty much got it down pat, but when I did the test to see if I could look at real pictures, I flunked. More practice for me.
The entrance exam is a great idea. I was wondering how they would deal with the mass number of people looking at pictures and maybe not getting the ID right. With a requirement to pass an entrance exam, and some double checking I’m sure, this makes the data more useful. When I was learning how to identify fossil pollen, I spent hours looking at reference slides and drawing the types. Then a test. Even then you always keep a reference set and picture keys handy.
Even though I flunked, don’t let that stop you…go give it a shot!
July 13th, 2007 at 10:37 am
If you find any really cool galaxies on the site, submit them to the Galaxy Zoo blog!!!
galaxyzoo.wordpress.com