Finished! Looks like this project is out of data at the moment!
Project Finished: Huge thank you to all the volunteers who have worked on this project! We couldn't have searched all these data without your help. We're hard at work analyzing the results, so look out for Newsletter updates in the near future.
FAQ
Where does the data come from?
The VST images were taken by the VLT Survey Telescope (VST) in Chile as part of the Fornax Deep Survey, which has been made publicly available through the European Southern Observatory (ESO). The NGVS images were taken as part of the Next Generation Virgo cluster Survey with the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT). The DECaLS data is from the Dark Energy Camera Legacy Survey with the Blanco telescope also in Chile. The UV images were taken by NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer satellite, known as GALEX, which was launched in 2003 to study the universe in the ultraviolet.
Where can I see more examples?
All the relevant examples you need can be found in the Field Guide, which can be opened through the pop-up tab on the right side of your screen. You can also read more in-depth articles about blue blobs, diffuse galaxies, and other research-related topics from the external links we posted on our project's homepage.
What happens if I provide an incorrect response to a question?
Multiple people must review an image set before it is considered classified, so one incorrect or mis-clicked classification will not affect the overall accuracy of our data. We're interested about how the majority of people have classified an image set, so if there is a large discrepancy between answers, we will step in to decide how that subject should be classified.
Why are volunteers needed to do this instead of computers?
When it comes to identifying extreme galaxies, citizen scientists are more accurate than computers for a number of reasons. For example, blue blobs are all very unique and faint in appearance which is difficult for a computer to recognize. For diffuse galaxies, computer algorithms do exist that can identify them since they are more regular in appearance, but in order to verify how reliable these algorithms are we need to also identify these objects by eye. We can achieve this by evaluating imaging surveys of nearby galaxy clusters like the Fornax Deep Survey, however these typically consist of far too many images for any one person to go through, so we need a team of willing citizen scientists to help us check each one for blue blobs and diffuse galaxies!
Does it matter which image I draw a box/circle on?
The box/circle you draw will show up on all three images after you draw it, so it doesn't matter which image you choose to draw on. However, it's easiest to pick one of the two optical images to draw on rather than the UV image so that you don't draw a box/circle around the wrong thing!