In June 2019 we had a presentation by Professor Philip Best on LOFAR(Low Frequency Array Radio telescope). In Feb we had Grant Miller talk about ZOONIVERSE. There is now a project everyone can participate in that combines two of our recent talks: GALAXYZOO:LOFAR.

What are they looking for?

  • Supermassive Black Holes
  • Star forming galaxies

LOFAR also picks up nearby galaxies where much star formation is going on. You may not see radio jets but the shape of the radio emission follows the shape of the nearby galaxy closely.

To visualise this, the radio emissions are shown as yellow lines (called contours) in the foreground and the image from an optical telescope in the background.

The LOFAR survey has made images of hundreds of thousands of these jets and galaxies, which have been identified by an automatic “source finder” computer program.

They have built a dedicated training workflow and a step-by-step tutorial video that will guide you through the classification process. To join in visit:

https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/chrismrp/radio-galaxy-zoo-lofar/about/research