Photography ... astronomy ... art ... design ... technology
(... and the odd rant)

All of these make my world go 'round, to some extent, and they will all be found here at some time or other. Some of the photography can be purchased from my Redbubble site. I can also be found at Tempus Fugit (no longer being updated).

Monday, December 10, 2007

Obsession

I've been away, speaking figuratively. Same desk, same PC, different bit of cyberspace. RedBubble, it seems, is somewhat addictive. However, I do have a life beyond it, and part of that life encompasses astronomy from time to time.

In doing a bit of research for a talk last week, I came across
Galazy Zoo. This is an online project that encourages people to assist with the massive task of classifying distant galaxies. As the site says, it's a: "project which harnesses the power of the internet - and your brain - to classify a million galaxies. By taking part, you'll not only be contributing to scientific research, but you'll view parts of the Universe that literally no-one has ever seen before and get a sense of the glorious diversity of galaxies that pepper the sky."

Well, I just went back to that site to look a bit further, and ended up registering. That process led me very quickly through the tutorial & test, and straight on to the work itself. No fuss, no ceremony, no tedious application or PhD thesis, just lots of pictures, as fast as I could work through them. And therein, I think, may lie the success of this project: as soon as you've done one, another image appears. Well, you can't possibly leave that one, so you do it. Then, there's another - which will only take a second or 2 - and then ... and so on. Oh, go on, just one more, it might be an interesting one. Here's a screen grab:


And so, obsession rears its ugly head once more. Have a go, you might enjoy it!