So the long promised forums/Zoo accounts merge is underway but unfortunately things are moving a little slower than we’d like.  The good new is we’re making good progress, the bad news is the forums won’t be back up until tomorrow now – sorry!

More news in the morning…

Cheers

Arfon

Today is a big day for those of us who work behind the scenes at Galaxy Zoo.  More news later but for now the forums are in maintenance mode and new registrations are disabled on the Zoo until this evening.  More news later…

Cheers

Arfon

Our own paper covering the discovery of Hanny’s Voorwerp is still working it’s way through the refereeing process. We’ve come up against a referee who really understands the subject and it’s taking time to put right our numerous missteps and to make everything clear. A new version will be submitted in the next couple of days, so hopefully you’ll be able to read it soon.

In the meantime, a group of Dutch radio astronomers have published a paper reporting their own results which is accepted and available online. They were kind enough to discuss it with us, and add some of the team to the list of authors – and they’ll be blogging here next week to tell you about what they’ve done.

It still hurts to be beaten to publication, but at least they’re friendly and it’s another sign of how this remarkable object has captured people’s attention.

In our latest (behind-the-scenes) update of the Galaxy Zoo blog software, we’ve installed a plug in that makes it easy for you to share any story on the blog that you particularly like via portals such as digg.com and facebook. If you do like a post and want to spread the word about it, all you have to do is click on`Bookmark it’ to submit the story.

A while ago we asked you to fill out a short survey about your thoughts about Galaxy Zoo. The purpose of this survey was to get an idea of what was inspiring people to participate in Galaxy Zoo. Thank you for participating in that survey. We are starting to analyze the results of that survey, and we’re learning some interesting things. We’re waiting to share the results until we are finished with all the research, so that we don’t run the risk of biasing your answers because you have heard about the results. But don’t worry, we’ll describe all the results here on the blog, just as we are doing with all the Galaxy Zoo research results.

We’d like to ask you a few follow-up questions about why you participate in Galaxy Zoo. Please click on the link below to answer a short 4-question survey. Your responses will help us learn more about why so many people have found Galaxy Zoo engaging, and will help us design future projects to be even more appealing.

Please click on the link below and fill out the short survey. Thank you for your help!

Galaxy Zoo user follow-up survey

Clear skies,
Jordan

Cape Canaveral, Florida – The space shuttle Atlantis lifted off today after a nearly flawless countdown, beginning an 11-day mission to refurbish and repair the Hubble Space Telescope for the final time. That’s how a news story would report it. But there’s a lot missing there, even from the viewpoint of spectators watching the launch. Read More…

Galaxy Zoo participants usually have a keen interest in the Hubble Space Telescope. Not only has it delivered unparalleled views of galaxies, and advanced our understanding of cosmic distances, the relation between galaxies and black holes, and their coupled evolution – but we have a project scheduled for the coming year to observe Hanny’s Voorwerp with three of its instruments. Of these three, one is currently sitting in the payload bay of the space shuttle Atlantis, and the other two are out of commission awaiting a service call by the crew of Atlantis. These views (taken from the coast about 10 km from the site) show the shuttle at dusk on May 10, about 16 hours before scheduled launch (May 11, 1401 local EDT time or 1801 UT). The rotating service structure has been pulled around to keep it clear of the launch blast, and floodlights illuminate the entire pad area for continuing work. The safety measures enacted following the loss of Columbia and its crew have led to the unprecedented situation of the shuttle Endeavour sitting on the other launch pad, ready to be prepared for a rescue mission at short notice. This is needed because, unlike missions to the International Space Station, Hubble missions do not offer a safe haven in case of damage to the thermal protection system, or from impacts with space debris. This is the final scheduled visit to Hubble, so the crew has a full schedule of replacements and repairs. Stand by for updates…

The Object of the Day thread on the forums is always worth watching, but today’s is particularly good. Jules explains what the mysterious object that forms the ‘O’ in the Galaxy Zoo logo is – and if you don’t know already, you might be surprised to find it isn’t a galaxy…

Earlier this month Galaxy Zoo took part in the 100 Hours of Astronomy, which was extremely successful and enjoyable too! Since then, several zooites have remarked that it was great fun and a real inspiration to classify more. So just for today, we decided we’d like to have another go.

Galaxy Zoo was inspired by zookeeperKevin’s PhD thesis a few years ago. Trying to find those blue ellipticals, he was running a program separating spiral from elliptical. He classified 50,000 galaxies in one week. ZookeeperChris was later heard to say in a lecture: “A PhD student will classify 50,000 galaxies before telling you exactly what you can do with the other 850,000.” (The rest is history.) Among other units, this incredible achievement was given a name, “The Kevin-Week”.

Today is Kevin’s 28th birthday. To celebrate, Arfon has set us up a Zoonometer again for today. We have a very special target: How many Kevin-weeks can we collectively click our way to on Kevin’s birthday? Let’s find out.

Thank you all for your inspiration, and Arfon for his kindness and technical genius – and happy birthday Kevin!