Telescope Reviews: Chance to help the Professionals

Not sure which forum to post this to but just got the alumni magazine from Johns Hopkins University, Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Science. There is a FABULOUS article in there about how amateurs are helping professionals by identifying the types of galaxies seen in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. One Dutch amateur astronomer noticed an unusual blue blob in one of the pictures and the professionals couldn't identify it so it's now been called "Hanny's Voorwoop" (Dutch for object.) It seems the primary purpose of the site is to go through the tremendous amount of data collected by Sloan and then catagorize the types of galaxies. Another search object was to look for rare blue elliptical galaxies. Anyway, there's a lot more to be done. All 118,000 volunteers are listed as co-authors on every paper published by including a link to a site with all their names. Seems like this might be of interest to some of the folks on this site. Please check it out: www.galaxyzoo.com
Maureen
PS Mods please feel free to move this to a forum where it will get the most exposure. Thanks!

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Discovery 12.5" TD on Scopebuggy
with Argo Navis and Feathertouch focuser
27mmPan, 13mm & 8mmEthos, 6mm Radian
Howie Glatter laser and Blug
Coronado PST

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