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Posted by Kelly Whitt Aug 1, 2007 |
I've been helping out over at the Galaxy Zoo ever so often. (See my old blog about what the Galaxy Zoo is.) I did really well with the trials but the actual pictures are much blurrier than the test. It's kind of like sorting one oval blob after the next. I try to look closely into that blurry smudge for any sign of a spiral arm, but if I don't I just pass it off as an elliptical. It's very refreshing when I not only see a spiral galaxy but it is clear enough to tell, distinctly, whether it is clockwise or anticlockwise. I've had a couple that have defied explanation and a couple that were not galaxies at all, but stars and the like.
During the test they give you an example of a merger but then tell you that mergers are very rare and you can go through hundreds of photos before you see one. I must have been on about my fifth photo when I came upon a clear merger. Two grayish blue galaxies with distinct cores but next to each other and with material being swept between the two. I wish I had saved the galaxy reference number to share it, but at the time I was just so excited to click on the merger button that I did it and then it was gone. Oh well. A couple hundred more analyzed and maybe I will run across a merger again.
Looking at these images reminds me a lot of when Hubble was new. The first images with the flawed mirror were blurry, and the images after it was fixed were crystal clear. Sometimes I have the urge to grab some invisible focus knob and try to adjust the image on my screen. I wish the images could be a bit clearer, but I understand I'm looking at the best (and ONLY) image of this galaxy in existence.
It's a little strange to flip through these galaxies with just a cursory look, (and some of them are breathtakingly beautiful), without stopping to think of the countless stars in each one, and the countless planets, and the possibility of countless forms of life. We don't even know all the secrets that lie within our own galaxy, and the most we will probably ever get of these others is the 15-second glance at its blurry form before it is forever lost once more.
Here is just one of the beauties I have discovered while visiting the Galaxy Zoo.