Articles

Galaxy Zoo Newsletter #1
02/08/2007

Hello

This is the first email newsletter from www.galaxyzoo.org . We wanted to thank you all for making the first three weeks such a success, and so we're sending this to all 80,000 of you. If you'd like to opt out of future emails, see the unsubscribe instructions below.

PROJECT UPDATE

To date, unbelievably, 80,000 of you have viewed and classified more than 10 million images of galaxies. Our initial target of having each galaxy (there are a million in our initial sample from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey) viewed once is more than done, but we still need your help. Our NEW target is to have each and every galaxy classified by 20 separate users.

The importance of multiple classifications is that it will enable us to build an accurate and reliable database, that will meet the high standards of the scientific community. For the first time, we'll be able to separate not only spirals from ellipticals, but obvious spirals from fainter, fuzzier things. No-one has ever been able to do this before, so we hope that you'll continue to search through our galaxies and enjoy the ride.

Thanks as well to everyone who has emailed us with an interesting object, or posted on the forum (see below). We're slowly working through the list, and the first objects have now been sent off to telescopes for follow-up work to begin. The ability to follow up on objects identified by you, our users, is one of the most amazing things about Galaxy Zoo and we're looking forward to sharing the results. Hopefully it's also a motivation to look at 'just one more' galaxy when you're using the site.


MY GALAXIES AND THE FORUM ARE LIVE

The long-awaited Galaxy Zoo forum is now online at www.galaxyzooforum.org (or just follow the link from the main site). Please come and join those members sharing their greatest images, or talking about their experiences in the galaxy zoo.

Many of you have also noticed that the 'My Galaxies' link on the Galaxy Analysis page is now live, so you can trawl back through the galaxies you've classified in the last week or so and share the best with your friends and those on the forum.

That's all for now, but we're working hard on making the most of your classifications to date, and planning new projects with which you can explore the Universe further. If you haven't been back to the site for a while, please come and help us reach our new target of 20 million classifications. It's only another 100 or so galaxies each!

The Galaxy Zoo team.