Classifying galaxies by morphology has normally been done by small teams of astronomers or individual astronomers, like Peter Nilson spending years classifying objects on the Palomar Observatory Sky Survey producing the Uppsala General Catalogue.
Galaxyzoo is another way to do classifications of galaxy morphology. The work of hundreds of thousands of astronomy enthusiasts is used. Astronomy has an old tradition of professional astronomers collaborating with amateur astronomers, and basically I see this project as something of an evolution rather than a revolution. It is pro-am collaboration in astronomy done with e-science methods.
Participants in Galaxy Zoo classify basic galaxy morphology - spiral or elliptical, bulge visibility, bar formations, interaction - on images from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey over the Net. The first part of the project seems to have been successful; 170 000 people or so participated, classifying some 40 million galaxies, and the team behind it has begun to get papers out: here, here, here and here.
Now Galaxy Zoo 2 has started, basically a re-run through parts of the first catalogue with a closer look at morphology; more data about each object is collected. Judging from the onslaught on the servers - the pages have been loading very slow since this morning - a lot of people try to participate (helped by recent exposure on the BBC).
Update: servers crashed but came up again, thanks to backup. (But the site is unreachable now, 19 February 9 am CET.)
Update 2: two million classifications in two days.
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