Citizen Science: Another Way to Help Scientists Search Our Universe

(Image Source: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)

By Glenn A. Walsh

Reporting for SpaceWatchtower

Over the last few months, NASA and the Carnegie Institution for Science have started projects asking the general public to help scientists find other planets. Another Citizen Science project has also recently been unveiled, asking for help from the public to restore decades-old astronomy photographs. An Internet link to this project can be found at the end of this blog-post.

                                                   Astronomy Rewind

Astronomy Rewind is another initiative of the Citizen Science project known as Zooniverse, which asks the public to view and classify astronomy photographs from the 19^th and 20^th centuries. People can help to classify these old photographs into the proper categories of the Astronomy Image Explorer.

A service of the American Astronomical Society (AAS), the Astronomy Image Explorer contributes to a digital sky atlas originally developed by Microsoft Research, but now managed by AAS. These restored photographs will also join new photographs, such as those from the Hubble Space Telescope, in data-bases managed by NASA and other academic organizations.

Many of the images and maps, which appear on the Astronomy Rewind Internet web-site, come from past journals of the American Astronomical Society. These journals include the Astronomical Journal, Astrophysical Journal, ApJ Letters, and the ApJ Supplement Series, from an archive funded by NASA and housed at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Public assistance is sought for this project because computers are not very good in recognizing stars and other celestial objects in digitized images. Human eyes still have a much better knack for pattern recognition in such computer files.

“There's no telling what discoveries await,” says Alyssa Goodman of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, one of the project's founders. She went on to say, “Turning historical scientific literature into searchable, retrievable data is like turning the key to a treasure chest.”

Astronomy Rewind Citizen Science Project:
Link >>> https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/zooniverse/astronomy-rewind

Internet Links to Additional Information ---

News Release from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics - "With Astronomy Rewind, Citizen Scientists Will Bring Zombie Astrophotos Back to Life."
Link >>> https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/2017-11

More Citizen Science Projects:
Link >>> http://buhlplanetarium2.tripod.com/FAQ/citizenscience.html

Related Blog Posts ---

"Public Invited to Search for Planets in Other Star Systems." 2017 March 27.

Link >>> http://spacewatchtower.blogspot.com/2017/03/public-invited-to-search-for-planets-in.html

"Citizen Science: Help NASA Find 'Planet Nine'." 2017 March 10.

Link >>> http://spacewatchtower.blogspot.com/2017/03/citizen-science-help-nasa-find-planet.html

     Safe Public Viewing of the Great American Solar Eclipse
                         Monday, August 21, 2017
     Mt. Lebanon Public Library, South Suburban Pittsburgh
More Info: Link >>> http://buhlplanetarium.tripod.com/archivenews/releases/poster-flyer/2017SolarEclipse-Flyer.htm

Source: Glenn A. Walsh Reporting for SpaceWatchtower, a project of Friends of the Zeiss.
             2017 May 10.

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gaw

Glenn A. Walsh, Project Director, Friends of the Zeiss: < http://buhlplanetarium.tripod.com/fotz/ >
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