speedymarie
07-12-2007, 04:15 PM
On the internet with time to kill? Check out http://www.galaxyzoo.org/
Long-range, high powered telescopes are taking hundreds of images a day of distant galaxies and other objects, many, many more than can be analyzed by the staff available. History has shown that the human eye is much better at classifying these objects than computers (which throws out anomalies, which are the most interesting of all).
This site allows regular joes to view and classify images from the hundreds of thousands currently being cataloged. You go through a tutorial and then take a test. Once you pass the test, you can begin classifying. Your classifications are compared with others to create a consensus. You can see pictures from the universe that almost no one has ever seen.
Seriously, it is addictive.
Long-range, high powered telescopes are taking hundreds of images a day of distant galaxies and other objects, many, many more than can be analyzed by the staff available. History has shown that the human eye is much better at classifying these objects than computers (which throws out anomalies, which are the most interesting of all).
This site allows regular joes to view and classify images from the hundreds of thousands currently being cataloged. You go through a tutorial and then take a test. Once you pass the test, you can begin classifying. Your classifications are compared with others to create a consensus. You can see pictures from the universe that almost no one has ever seen.
Seriously, it is addictive.