New from the Zoo – gas clouds around active galactic nuclei
With the excitement about new observations of Hanny’s Voorwerp, this might be a good time to point out that Zoo participants are finding new examples of a related (albeit less spectacular) class of objects. (That was evidently my roundabout way of saying “hey, everyone, you can look for these too!”). What do these four galaxies have in common?
If at first you don't succeed…
So it’s been a busy 24 hours at Galaxy Zoo. As we outlined in the earlier posts were working hard on unifying the Galaxy Zoo and Galaxy Zoo forum accounts. During the merge we had to disable the forums and new registrations on the Zoo so that we could be sure of exactly who was registered where.
So 24 hours later and with some tired eyes I’m sorry to report that we ran into a few technical difficulties with the merge. Specifically, the tests we had in place for checking the post-merge user accounts showed us that we had some problems. It’s of prime importance to us that we get this right and once we’d done the merge we weren’t completely satisfied that things were exactly as they should be.
So what next?
We’ll by now you should see that the forums are back up again as are new registrations on the Zoo and so we’re back to how things have always been. We’re going to review what happened yesterday, figure out what went wrong and then have a go again in the next week or so. Watch this space!
Cheers
Arfon & The Team
Things are moving slooowly
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
You may notice a few new things are going on around the Zoo today. From today, you should be able to log in to both Galaxy Zoo itself and the forum at the same time with a single login and password. We are also creating a single profile page, so you can edit all your details in one place. We should have done this in the first place, but better late than never!
The short version of this post is that the sites will be down for a few hours today, and then you’ll be able to login to both the Zoo and forum with the same login. If you want the gory details, then read on :
Changes are coming…
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
Beaten to the punch
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.
Spread the word
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.
Why do you zoo?, part two
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
We have liftoff!
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…
Hubble refurbishment – the countdown continues
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…
Galaxy Zoo 