ODSL Forum: Dark Energy Explorers: Citizen Science with HETDEX - Research & Education Applications

by Prof. Keely Finkelstein (UT Austin)

Friday 30 Jun 2023, 15:00 → 16:00 Europe/Berlin

Basement Seminar Room (Origins Building)

Abstract: Dark Energy Explorers is a citizen science campaign aiming to improve the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX) data classification process. We created Dark Energy Explorers on Zooniverse, the world’s largest citizen science platform, to help us classify the large amount of data, and specifically with help in determining more efficient ways to select real vs fake sources, and Lya-emitters, in the right redshift range, vs. more nearby OII emitting galaxies. With Dark Energy Explorers we train participants, of any background, to be able to distinguish different galaxies by swiping left or right on their smartphone. Initial analysis has shown that citizen science is an efficient and effective tool for classification most accurately done by the human eye. Since launching in late February 2021, we have reached more than 4 million classifications (300,000 galaxies) by 13,000+ volunteers in 85 countries. I can share some of the early results from Dark Energy Explorers, how we are using it within the HETDEX team (from House et al. 2023), along with the educational and outreach impacts and tools we have created so far.