Amateur astronomers unite! The pros want your help!
image from Astronomy Picture of the Day, Credit: NASA, ESA, A. Aloisi (STScI / ESA), Hubble Heritage (STScI / AURA) - ESA/Hubble Collaboration
I learned about this from the Washington Science Teachers Assocation.
Galaxy Zoo and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey are looking for your help in sorting out different galaxies. It's a cool opportunity for anyone to go where few non-astronomers have gone before and help do real science at the same time.
What does this involve?
Go to the Galaxy Zoo, peruse their tutorial, and learn how to pick out spiral and elliptical galaxies. Once you can do that reliably, you can participate.
School science fairs will never be the same.
More like this
So far indeed. It is blobbish and small, but interesting.
"What is art but life upon the larger scale, the higher. When, graduating up in a spiral line of still expanding and ascending gyres, it pushes toward the intense significance of all things, hungry for the infinite?" -Elizabeth Barrett Browning
"Oh, you hate your job? Why didn't you say so? There's a support group for that. It's called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the bar." -Drew Carey