[X] My Assistant

[Stu]

If you haven't heard about it yet, then I urge you to have a wander over to the Galaxy Zoo website and join in the fun that tens of thousands of people all around the world are now having, looking at and classifying galaxies imaged during the Sloan Sky Survey. It's a bit like the STARDUST project, but instead of tracking down particles of comet dust on images you're trying to classify pictures of galaxies based on their structure and shape. All you have to do is pass a short tutorial then you're raring to go... and you can literally see galaxies no-one has ever seen before. And if you spot something really unusual, you can email the Zoo "keepers" and bring it to their attention, for follow-up studies.

Only one problem - it's very, very addictive, and could seriously cut into your UMSF browsing time. You have been warned.

Give it a go, it's not just great fun, but you'll be contributing towards science too.

[stevesliva]

Dear All,

It's hard to believe it's November already, but here at Galaxy Zoo
we've been working hard to make the best use of your hard work,
producing scientific results from the galaxies you've classified for
us.

We're now ready to move on to the next phase of the project; having
shown that Galaxy Zoo's classifiers can match the professionals in
sorting out galaxies, we're ready to give you a new challenge. Getting
more detailed classifications will greatly increase the science we can
do, so we've taken the 250,000 (roughly) brightest galaxies from the
Galaxy Zoo sample and need your help to sort through them. Instead of
just asking whether they are spiral or elliptical, Galaxy Zoo 2 allows
you to spend more time with each galaxy. What's more, the sample
contains fewer orange blobs so the chances of seeing something
spectacular have never been greater.

The site will go live in the coming weeks, but as a Galaxy Zoo
volunteer you can have a sneak preview and help us get the site ready
for the world. Simply go to
http://www.astrosphere.org/Surveys/GalaxyZoo/ and complete a short
survey, and you'll be given access to the wonderful world of Zoo 2.

(You will have to register a new account for access to this preview
version of Zoo 2).

If you're wondering what we've been up to with your results so far,
then you haven't been keeping up with the blog (www.galaxyzooblog.org,
or follow the link from the main site). Six papers are now completed
and either published or in the hands of the journals (two more will go
in this week!), and the string of telescopes which have been used to
follow up on Galaxy Zoo objects continues to grow - a team are up on
Kitt Peak in Arizona as I write, and the IRAM millimeter dish in Spain
will be following up on objects selected using your classifications
over the New Year period.

Each and every click on Zoo 2 will contribute towards our
understanding of the Universe. Please do help us!

www.astrosphere.org/Surveys/GalaxyZoo/