Galaxy Zoo 2: Help astronomers sort through 250,000 galaxies! The Sloan Digital Sky Survey found hundreds of thousands of galaxies which needed to be accurately classified; the original Galaxy Zoo project was a collaborative effort by tens of thousands of volunteers around the world to sort these galaxies into spiral and elliptical categories. Now, it's entered its second phase: describing the details of these galaxies. Read the tutorial, and then you can jump in and start classifying. [more inside]
posted by Upton O'Good on Aug 22, 2009 - 6 comments

Astronomers searching for amino acids in space have discovered something unexpected -- the center of our galaxy tastes like raspberries and smells like rum. [more inside]
posted by EmpressCallipygos on Apr 22, 2009 - 41 comments

A sixteen year long astronomical study, led by Dr. Reinhard Genzel of the Max-Planck-Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, has provided what is considered to be the best empirical evidence yet of the existence of supermassive black holes, specifically one a relatively cozy 27,000 light years away.... "The stellar orbits [QT] in the Galactic Centre [QT] show that the central mass concentration of four million solar masses must be a black hole, beyond any reasonable doubt." [more inside]
posted by Kronos_to_Earth on Dec 13, 2008 - 43 comments

Today is the first birthday of Galaxy Zoo. The largest astronomical collaboration in history, Galaxy Zoo has enlisted nearly a 150,000 volunteers to help classify over a million galaxies and released four science papers. It's made a number of interesting discoveries such as a large number of ring galaxies, Hanny’s Voorwerp, and a large number of visually (but not physically) overlapping galaxies. You can help classify galaxies or classify galaxy mergers. Don't miss the visual catalog of over 250 Objects of the Day--pretty much every one of them stunning.
posted by flug on Jul 11, 2008 - 5 comments

Billions and Billions astrophotography CCD gallery / film gallery / equipment / tutorials
posted by Blazecock Pileon on Sep 14, 2007 - 7 comments

Breathtaking Hubble picture of the Sombrero Galaxy (also identified as M104). The Hubble Heritage team took the original images during May and June of this year using the Advanced Camera for Surveys and multiple color filters. They then stitched 6 images together to make the final composite image.
posted by Irontom on Oct 10, 2003 - 39 comments

3-D Maps of Nearby Space "The first detailed map of space within about 1,000 light years of Earth places the solar system in the middle of a large hole that pierces the plane of the galaxy...The new map, produced by University of California, Berkeley, and French astronomers, alters the reigning view of the solar neighborhood." (one view|another view|links to bigger images)
posted by kirkaracha on May 30, 2003 - 5 comments

A computer aided simulation builds a spiral galaxy from its beginning. In all, 390,000 particles were placed in an arrangement similar to a newborn galaxy. The end result after three months is an event that is believed to take billions of years to occur. (animation)
posted by samsara on Aug 7, 2002 - 7 comments