I just received this in the mail from the folks at Galaxy Zoo. They’re asking for help in finding supernovae:

Can we ask for your help once again? This time, not only are we
classifying galaxies, but we’re hunting supernovae : exploding stars.
Images of likely supernova candidates captured by a telescope in
California are being fed to our website at
http://supernova.galaxyzoo.org . Astronomers are standing by in the
Canary Islands to follow up on the most exciting possibilities, but
first we need your help to decide where to point the telescope. Please
take the time to go to the site, read the tutorial – and then start
hunting.

Unfortunately, the link leads to a page indicating that the Galaxy Zoo Supernovae is “closed for a while.” According to a blog posting by Arfon Smith, the Technical Lead for Galaxy Zoo, Galaxy Zoo 2 works from a relatively static set of assets, while Supernova Zoo is pulling down assets from the Palomar Transient Factory in near-realtime–a somewhat different challenge.

They’re pleased with the initial results (20 supernovae were found), but they want to rework classification software:

Supernova Zoo was our first opportunity to test the codebase that myself and the team at SIUE have been working hard on for the last few months. Handling a continual stream of new Assets and changing the behaviour of the system in real time based on your classifications has been a fun challenge and overall we’re pretty happy with the results.
In the next day Supernova Zoo will be taken offline so that we can have a good look at the results from the past few days. Based upon your excellent feedback there will almost certainly be some tweaks to the classification interface and refinements to the decision tree. Supernova hunting is a very different challenge to galaxy classification and we’re delighted that our Zooites appear to equally adept at classifying galaxy morphologies as finding new supernovae!

So sign up for Galaxy Zoo 2, and get ready for the next opportunity to hunt for supernovae!

The SETI@Home project is celebrating its 10th anniversary this week with a symposium on May 21 at the Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory, and a picnic on May 23rd at Tilden Park in Berkeley.

Live video of the symposium will be broadcast via ustream. If you can’t watch the live stream, a full archive will be made available after the symposium. Go to the SETI@Home site for more information on the symposium and to submit questions.

Participation in the free picnic requires an RSVP to a forum thread. Of course, there is also an official t-shirt, which you can order online.

SETI@Home originated in 1995 as a project to use the computing power of volunteer PCs as a way to analyze radio telescope data for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence. The program has been a wild success, although no evidence for ETs has been found.

Anyone with a PC can participate in the SETI@Home project, which like other BOINC projects uses an ad hoc volunteer compute grid to solve complex computational problems.

 

Galileoscope Project IYA2009

Have you ever wanted to see CRATERS on the MOON? Track the motions of the MOONS of JUPITER? Observe the waxing and waning PHASES of VENUS? Galileo did it 400 years ago, and now you can too with the amazing new Galileoscope! Over 3 years in the making by LEADING ASTRONOMERS, ENGINEERS, and EDUCATORS, the new Galileoscope could turn you (or your kids) into the next Galileo!

Here’s how it works. Assemble the 26 pieces that make up the Galileoscope, point it at a moon, star, or planet and look through the eyepiece. It’s really that easy!

What makes such miracles possible? Through the magic of optics, light is collected by the objective lens where it is magnified and passed down the telescope tube to the eyepiece and passed directly to your eye without fancy electronics or painful surgery!

Just look at what you get:

• The Galileoscope, which you can assemble in either the Galilean or Keplerian configuration!
• A 1¼-inch focuser, compatible with commercial accessories like eyepieces, star diagonals, and camera adapters!
• A 50mm achromatic objective lens for reduced chromatic aberration!
• A lens shade for blocking out the pesky glare from urban street lamps!
• V-block bases/stands so your Galileoscope won’t roll away!
• A 20mm eyepiece for 25 TIMES MAGNIFICATION!
• Complete assembly instructions!

How much would you pay for all this?

$100?

Lower…

$50?

Keep going…

$1?

Umm, higher…

Would you believe $15? ($12.50 in quantities of 100)?

How is this possible? Simple. By selling directly to the astronomical community, we eliminate the middleman, and since we aren’t a profit-making venture, we can sell these Galileoscopes at cost to you to consumer, so call now! Operators are standing by!

Order now, you’ll also get, for no addtional charge, the amazing BARLOW LENS, capable of doubling the size of everything you see in the Galileoscope!

Please stand by for an important message:

It’s unfortunate, but in many parts of the world, children don’t have access to astronomy, or telescopes, or even clean water. Want to make a difference in the lives of one these children? Click the Give Some link and you can donate a Galileoscope to a needy child. It’s that simple, and it only costs $12.50. That’s like $0.03 a day, and isn’t it worth it to know that somewhere out there a child will not go to bed hungry because he was up all night discovering the wonders of the cosmos?

Some assembly required, but only about 5 minutes. Price does not include shipping and handling. Galileoscope not include mount or tripod, but does come with a ¼-20 mounting nut, compatible with most photo tripods. Begins shipping in late April. Do not point Galileoscope at the sun. Do not taunt Galileoscope. Use of Galileoscope may cause excommunication. 

If you’re looking to help with astronomical research, but don’t have the money for expensive telescopes or particularly relish the idea of chilling in an observatory at 14,000 ft., you’ll definitely want to have a look at Galaxy Zoo. Galaxy Zoo leverages the almighty power of the internets like a giant biological computer with the sole purpose of identifying illegal immigrants from surveillance footage classifying the millions of galaxies photographed by astronomical telescopes.

Getting involved with the project is quite easy. After creating an account with Galaxy Zoo, participants go through a brief tutorial to learn the technique of galaxy classification, then they can go right to work viewing images of real galaxies and classifying them, not unlike a mass of unpaid grad students.

Initially, the Galaxy Zoo team set about to divide up elliptical galaxies from spiral galaxies. Now they are engaged in a much more ambitious program of classifying galaxies by feature, comparing them against each other, and identifying rare objects like gravitational lenses. Based upon the work of its “citizen scientists” Galaxy Zoo has published 4 papers, with a 5th accepted for publication, and they still can use the help:

Your hard work has made Galaxy Zoo 2 an enormous success, as galaxy
classifications have been flooding in at a record-breaking rate. User
newolder recently recorded the 15 millionth  classifying click and
we’re now heading for 20 million. Please don’t stop now, though – we
still need your help at

http://www.galaxyzoo.org

The more of you who take part, and the more galaxies that you classify
the better our results will be in the end.

To help encourage those of you who haven’t really got to grips with
Zoo 2 yet, users who complete more than 100 classifications will get a
sneak preview of a series of tours of the Galaxy Zoo galaxies embedded
in GoogleSky. You’ll be whisked around the sky on a personal tour,
produced by Ben Hoyle and narrated by Galaxy Zoo team members at the
University of Portsmouth.

You’ll find the number of galaxies you’ve classified and the link to
the tours in the ‘My Galaxies’ section, which also now includes all of
your favourite galaxies. We’ve also made it easier than ever to find
your way around, with help available as you go along and an ‘invert’
button to help you find faint features in the galaxy.

Galaxy Zoo is already – thanks to you – the most successful online
citizen science project. Our fifth scientific paper, on blue
ellipticals in Zoo 1, has been accepted by the journal, and we have
just received the latest dose of follow-up observing time, from the
Japanese Suzaku satellite. All of this depends on your help – so log
onto www.galaxyzoo.org and get classifying.

Thanks, and keep up the good work.

Chris & the Galaxy Zoo team