Mergers Update
We have just changed the target on the Galaxy Zoo Mergers page (http://mergers.galaxyzoo.org). The new system has a broken ring and a nearby companion. It’s a very pretty system, and it seems to be a bit easier to model than the first one we posted. For all the systems we are putting up as challenges, we do a quick run ourselves to see if we can find any solutions that might be on-track. Although we found a few solutions right away, we don’t know if they are the best ones or if they are unique. Of course, that’s why we need your help.
We are going to be updating the target daily. Every day, we should will have a new cosmic collision for you to help us model.
If you can spend 10 minutes to quickly weed out the obvious bad ones on 20-30 screens, it would be a great help to us! The more clicks we have, the better we constrain the collision. Make sure you hit save when you are done looking at the images! Although we automatically back up some clicks, we don’t want to lose any of your data.
Thanks for all you do.
– John Wallin, Computational Scientist/Astronomer
Galaxy Zoo 
Thanks John, the program is working fine for me so I’ll give as many clicks as I can
I’m loving it !
No pun intended ! and certainly no copyright infringement either 😉
In Firefox browser, I find that clicking Take-me-there causes Firefox to close instantly.
(Java IS enabled in my Firefox options.)
In Internet Explorer browser, clicking Take-me-there causes IE to lock up.. “not responding”.
After restarting PC (Dell 5150C / XP Pro SP3) there is an error log file on the desktop hs_err_pid3996.log
Start and end sections extracted from that rather long error log file are pasted below:
———————————————–
An unexpected exception has been detected in native code outside the VM.
Unexpected Signal : EXCEPTION_STACK_OVERFLOW (0xc00000fd) occurred at PC=0x7C90E8EE
Function=strchr+0xE1
Library=C:WINDOWSsystem32ntdll.dll
Current Java thread:
….
…. (central part of log omitted)
….
….
Local Time = Wed Nov 25 13:01:42 2009
Elapsed Time = 6
#
# The exception above was detected in native code outside the VM
#
# Java VM: Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (1.4.2_03-b02 mixed mode)
#
————————————————
Thanks. I can’t replicate the error in Firefox, but we’ll have a look.
Andy, I’ve tested the applet with no ill effects in IE and Firefox on Windows XP using 1.4.2_04-b05
Yes, I’m serious 1.4.2_04-b05 vs. 1.4.2_03-b02. So I don’t know of any significant changes in versions out to the 4th and 5th significant digits (doh!) that might cause this issue.
If you post on the forums, we can help you in more detail there.
http://www.galaxyzooforum.org/index.php?board=31.0
There’s a Technical Support thread running. If you post over there with the next 4 or 5 lines in the log after “Current Java thread:” we’ll see if we can help.