Wednesday 25 July 2007

Galaxy Zoo Forum Is Now Up

The Galaxy Zoo team have been working hard and have now finished setting up a forum. It can be found at http://www.galaxyzooforum.org. As such, this blog is now redundant and no new posts will be made. Thanks go to all of you who have read this blog, especially those who have sent in images. This blog and it's associated mosaic on PhotoBucket will remain online, but nothing new will appear. I will try my best to answer any e-mails that are sent to me, but I will not post anything up. I suggest you put your images on the Galaxy Zoo Forum instead. Thank you.

SDSS Ref. No. 587742629059362935

G. Proctor sends in the very interesting image of what appears to be a merger of 3 galaxies! I apologise for the slight artifact in the middle.

http://cas.sdss.org/astro/en/tools/explore/obj.asp?id=587742629059362935

SDSS Ref. No. 587730843134525602

A. Hall sends in this image of an anti-clockwise spiral galaxy beginning to lose its form, "possibly due to the influence of the spiral galaxy in the background? Could be the early stages of a merger taking place or in passing the spiral has broken down?".

http://cas.sdss.org/astro/en/tools/explore/obj.asp?id=587730843134525602

Monday 23 July 2007

SDSS Ref. No. 587739706342899883

G. Williams sends in this interesting image of an anti-clockwise spiral with highly elongated arms (possibly the result of a merger). G. Williams also notes that "Weirdly, something that must be a distant edge-on spiral is almost parallel to one of the arms." Interesting...

http://cas.sdss.org/astro/en/tools/explore/obj.asp?id=587739706342899883

Galaxy Mosaic

I have just made a mosaic of all the images posted so far (including the ones that aren't galaxies). I had to half the dimensions of every image for it to let me upload it without sacrificing any image quality. If you want the full size version, send me an e-mail at f1zzle@hotmail.co.uk. The image (1200 pixels by 1200 pixels) can be found at: http://s201.photobucket.com/albums/aa198/galaxyimages/?action=view&current=Mosaic-1200x1200.jpg

SDSS Ref. No. 587741710493614158

Is this a lenticular galaxy (or am I being too eager again?)? It sort of looks like an elliptical, but the centre looks like the centre of a spiral, hence why I think it is a lenticular galaxy.

http://cas.sdss.org/astro/en/tools/explore/obj.asp?id=587741710493614158

SDSS Ref. No. 587741600953270386

I don't know whether it's a distorted elliptical or a ring galaxy. What do you think? Answers on a postcard to f1zzle@hotmail.co.uk please.

http://cas.sdss.org/astro/en/tools/explore/obj.asp?id=587741600953270386

SDSS Ref. No. 587741830733758548

An anti-clockwise spiral.

http://cas.sdss.org/astro/en/tools/explore/obj.asp?id=587741830733758548

SDSS Ref. No. 587741829122555932

A nice group of ellipticals, with a clockwise spiral to the right hand side, another clockwise spiral to the upper left, and a few other ellipticals.

http://cas.sdss.org/astro/en/tools/explore/obj.asp?id=587741829122555932

SDSS Ref. No. 587741829658181713

A rather nice merger of two spirals, one clockwise, the other edge-on.

http://cas.sdss.org/astro/en/tools/explore/obj.asp?id=587741829658181713

SDSS Ref. No. 587741828584177803

A clockwise spiral galaxy with two anti-clockwise companions. Is there a merger going on, or is it simply projection? I apologise for the star glare in the lower left.

http://cas.sdss.org/astro/en/tools/explore/obj.asp?id=587741828584177803

SDSS Ref. No. 587742189897908316

A slightly fuzzy, clockwise spiral galaxy, sent in by A. Manton.

http://cas.sdss.org/astro/en/tools/explore/obj.asp?id=587742189897908316

SDSS Ref. No. 587742061061603530

Another anti-clockwise spiral, this time with elongated arms. Sent in by A. Manton.

http://cas.sdss.org/astro/en/tools/explore/obj.asp?id=587742061061603530

SDSS Ref. No. 587732482744975454

Another example of an anti-clockwise spiral galaxy, with an elliptical galaxy appearing next to it. Thanks to A. Manton for sending this one in.

http://cas.sdss.org/astro/en/tools/explore/obj.asp?id=587732482744975454

SDSS Ref. No. 587731913110650988

A nice anti-clockwise spiral galaxy, sent in by A. Manton.

http://cas.sdss.org/astro/en/tools/explore/obj.asp?id=587731913110650988

SDSS Ref. No. 587737826214019353

Another example of an edge-on spiral galaxy, sent in by A. Manton.

http://cas.sdss.org/astro/en/tools/explore/obj.asp?id=587737826214019353

SDSS Ref. No. 587738067813859399

This really nice picture of a spiral galaxy with green emissions was sent in by A. Hall. A SIMBAD search gives a lot of results for just about every type of object you could want: Masers, emission-line stars, X-Ray sources, radio sources, supernova remnants, star clusters as well as a few starburst areas. I can't seem to find anything that specifically relates to the jets though. Nice find.

http://cas.sdss.org/astro/en/tools/explore/obj.asp?id=587738067813859399

SDSS Ref. No. 587742573760217155

Another merger sent in by A. Hall. He reckons it looks a bit like a golf club, and I'd have to agree. Isn't it interesting how the human mind finds familiar images in almost anything?

http://cas.sdss.org/astro/en/tools/explore/obj.asp?id=587742573760217155

SDSS Ref. No. 587739507158745151

While we're on the subject of animal-looking mergers, A. Manton sent in this picture of a merger that looks "a bit like a fish".

http://cas.sdss.org/astro/en/tools/explore/obj.asp?id=587739507158745151

SDSS Ref. No. 588017605771264148

An interesting merger of two spiral galaxies, sent in by A. Hall. He says: "it reminds me of a bird in flight".

http://cas.sdss.org/astro/en/tools/explore/obj.asp?id=588017605771264148

SDSS Ref. No. 587739116316983582

This image, also sent in by A. Hall, shows a previously unknown galaxy cluster (as confirmed by the people behind Galaxy Zoo)! Nice work, yet again!

http://cas.sdss.org/astro/en/tools/explore/obj.asp?id=587739116316983582

SDSS Ref. No. 588297864729067561

While not a galaxy, this certainly deserves a mention. A. Hall spotted this image of a comet that got caught up in a shot. Nice work!

http://cas.sdss.org/astro/en/tools/explore/obj.asp?id=588297864729067561

SDSS Ref. No. 587733604267655307

Any ideas? A. Manton (the submitter) suggests that it is either:

a) An elliptical that has been radically changed by a large gravitational field
b) An elliptical that is actually normal, but the image of which has been distorted by gravitational lensing (unlikely)
c) Same as b), but the distortion being caused by a CCD/lens/processing fault

A SIMBAD search reveals it to be Mrk 882. However, the only information I can obtain on it is that it is in the Abell 2199 Supercluster. Can anyone help?

http://cas.sdss.org/astro/en/tools/explore/obj.asp?id=587733604267655307

SDSS Ref. No. 587732482744975392

A barred, face-on, anti-clockwise spiral galaxy with elongated arms. Sent in by A. Manton.

http://cas.sdss.org/astro/en/tools/explore/obj.asp?id=587732482744975392

SDSS Ref. No. 587732050555961424

Another face-on, clockwise spiral galaxy with a smaller spiral to the upper left. Sent in by A. Manton.

http://cas.sdss.org/astro/en/tools/explore/obj.asp?id=587732050555961424

SDSS Ref. No. 587725576962113690

Two nice spirals here, one clockwise and one anti-clockwise. Sent in by A. Manton.

http://cas.sdss.org/astro/en/tools/explore/obj.asp?id=587725576962113690

Sunday 22 July 2007

M51 - The Whirlpool Galaxy

The SDSS website doesn't recognise this as an object, hence the lack of an SDSS reference number (if you don't believe me, you can check by selecting the 'bounding boxes' on the link below). However, it is such a nice galaxy that I think it definitely needs to be included here. You can also see it's companion galaxy NGC 5195 very nicely here as well. Sorry for the slight artifact.

http://cas.sdss.org/astro/en/tools/chart/navi.asp?ra=202.46958&dec=47.19528

Updates

Thanks to the help of robin_astro, I have now added NGC classifications to all images that have them. For those of you who don't know, you can find out what an object is by clicking on either 'NED search' or 'NIMBAD search'. This will give you a list of objects in the area (many thanks to robin_astro for pointing this out). I have also recategorised some of the lenticular galaxies as spirals in light of this new information (it looks like I'm just too eager for lenticulars...). As always, please send any images you have, along with their SDSS ref. no., to f1zzle@hotmail.co.uk.

Saturday 21 July 2007

SDSS Ref. No. 587738067267813847

I know this doesn't look much like a galaxy (I in fact think it is a supernova remnant, although I don't really have a clue), but I thought it looked good enough to put up here. I'm sure I've seen it somewhere before, so if any one can offer some pointers, please post them up in the comments or e-mail me at f1zzle@hotmail.co.uk.

http://cas.sdss.org/astro/en/tools/explore/obj.asp?id=587738067267813847

UPDATE: Many thanks to robin_astro and s_hawkins who have informed me that this image is of planetary nebula PN G164.8+31.1 and is not a supernova remnant like I thought. Robin_astro has also pointed out that images on the SDSS website can be cross-referenced by clicking on the SIMBAD link to the side of the image.

SDSS Ref. No. 587738067276857362

An apparently huge example of an anti-clockwise spiral galaxy. It really looks huge on the SDSS page. Once again, I apologise for the artifacts in the image.

http://cas.sdss.org/astro/en/tools/explore/obj.asp?id=587738067276857362

UPDATE: I've just realised it's M81!

SDSS Ref. No. 587738066739396669

Another lenticular spiral galaxy example. I apologise for the slight artifact in the lower left of the image.

http://cas.sdss.org/astro/en/tools/explore/obj.asp?id=587738066739396669

UPDATE: Sorry, it's not a lenticular galaxy at all. It's just a faint spiral, namely NGC 2976.

SDSS Ref. No. 587725550139277407

A ring galaxy (formed by an improbable gravitational interaction, most likely a small galaxy passing through a spiral galaxy's centre) with 3 other elliptical galaxies.

http://cas.sdss.org/astro/en/tools/explore/obj.asp?id=587725550139277407

SDSS Ref. No. 588011125188395136

A rather close and clear clockwise spiral galaxy.

http://cas.sdss.org/astro/en/tools/explore/obj.asp?id=588011125188395136

SDSS Ref. No. 588009370692288571

Another example of what I believe to be a lenticular galaxy, with some features of spiral galaxies and some features of elliptical galaxies. I would appreciate it if someone with more knowledge than me would tell me whether I am correct. You can either leave a message in the comments or e-mail me at f1zzle@hotmail.co.uk. Please excuse the slight artifact near the middle of the image.

Sorry, it's actually a spiral galaxy, namely NGC 4605. Am I too eager for a lenticular galaxy?

http://cas.sdss.org/astro/en/tools/explore/obj.asp?id=588009370692288571

SDSS Ref. No. 587733195696177184

Another nice example of a clockwise spiral galaxy. Note the presence of many young, blue stars near the top of the galaxy.

http://cas.sdss.org/astro/en/tools/explore/obj.asp?id=587733195696177184

UPDATE: Now identified as NGC 4695.

SDSS Ref. No. 587733080277909545

A perfect example of an elliptical galaxy. Compare the apparent size of this galaxy with the size of the other galaxy located half of the distance between the centre of the image and the bottom left corner.

http://cas.sdss.org/astro/en/tools/explore/obj.asp?id=587733080277909545

UPDATE: Identified as NGC 4686.

SDSS Ref. No. 587733196769984638

What appears to be a merger of two elliptical galaxies is in fact a result of projection. In reality, these galaxies are likely to be many millions of lightyears apart. This image highlights the difficulty of classifying some galaxies on Galaxy Zoo, especially when the image is even more fuzzy than this one.

http://cas.sdss.org/astro/en/tools/explore/obj.asp?id=587733196769984638

SDSS Ref. No. 587733196769591331

Two spiral galaxies that appear to be very close to one another, although this may simply be down to projection.

http://cas.sdss.org/astro/en/tools/explore/obj.asp?id=587733196769591331

UPDATE: Identified as NGC 4644.

SDSS Ref. No. 587733080814583861

An early stage merger of two ellipticals.

http://cas.sdss.org/astro/en/tools/explore/obj.asp?id=587733080814583861

SDSS Ref. No. 587733080814649463

A nice example of a edge on spiral galaxy.

http://cas.sdss.org/astro/en/tools/explore/obj.asp?id=587733080814649463


UPDATE: Identified as NGC 4669.

SDSS Ref. No. 587733196232917031

A diffuse anti-clockwise spiral galaxy, probably the result of another merger.

http://cas.sdss.org/astro/en/tools/explore/obj.asp?id=587733196232917031

UPDATE: Identified as NGC 4675.

SDSS Ref. No. 587731890580881580

A nice clockwise spiral with elongated arms, probably the result of a merger long ago.

http://cas.sdss.org/astro/en/tools/explore/obj.asp?id=587731890580881580