What you’ll do:
- Learn how to recognize artifacts – stray light from the camera, optics, detector, electronics, or cosmic rays.
- Examine telescope images labelled with boxes and painted blue to show where a computer algorithm thinks the artifacts are.
- Click buttons to tell the computer model when it is right and wrong.
- If you like, you can discuss what you find with other volunteers and scientists in an online forum.
Requirements
- Time: 10-15 minutes to complete the tutorial, then as much time as you like.
- Equipment: An internet-connected computer, tablet, or smartphone
- Knowledge: None. There’s a in-project tutorial.
Get started!
- Visit the project website.
- Complete the in-project tutorial to learn how to distinguish artifacts from real astronomical objects.
- Start inspecting data on distant galaxies from the latest space telescopes.
Learn more:
Fun fact: the reason that the letters “SPEC” are capitalized in this project’s name is because the data Artifact InSPECtor is focused on is spectroscopy data. Learn more about spectroscopy and how it is used in astronomy research on NASA’s Spectroscopy 101 webpages.
