I found this excellent website and I thought I'd tell you all about it. Actually I'll let the good people at GalaxyZoo tell you about it because I'm lazy.
"GalaxyZoo, the project which harnesses the power of the internet - and your brain - to classify a million galaxies. By taking part, you'll not only be contributing to scientific research, but you'll view parts of the Universe that literally no-one has ever seen before and get a sense of the glorious diversity of galaxies that pepper the sky.
Why do we need you?
The simple answer is that the human brain is much better at recognizing patterns than a computer can ever be. Any computer program we write to sort our galaxies into categories would do a reasonable job, but it would also inevitably throw out the unusual, the weird and the wonderful. To rescue these interesting systems which have a story to tell, we need you."
Once you have registered you get a tutorial page, which shows you some of the galaxies and other objects you will be asked to classify. These include; elliptical galaxies, spiral galaxies (clockwise and anti-clockwise), stars, satellite streaks and merging galaxies. Once you are happy that you know what you are looking for you move onto a quick test in which you are asked to classify 15 objects, get more than 8 right and and you can move onto to the galaxy classification page.
Once you are there it's fairly straight forward, you are given an image and pick one of the six options that you think best describe the image. You can also get more information on the image you are viewing by clicking on a link, this allows you to view an image that you can zoom in and out on as well as providing plenty of measurements.
Most of the images you get are unspectacular fuzzy blobs, but these don't take long to classify. What makes it worthwhile to me is the occasional beautiful galaxy you will come across or a mysterious object that you can't categorise. They have an excellent forum where you can post pictures of the strange things you find and get other peoples opinions or explanations.
It is very addictive, I soon started saying "just one more more" as you get a real sense of discovery when you find something interesting. If you have a bit of spare time and are interested in this kind of thing then I highly recommend it. Even if you are not, I'd still recommend having at look at the site, maybe you will get interested. Beats wasting time on minesweeper or solitaire.
http://www.galaxyzoo.org/Default.aspx
Here are a few of the more interesting ones I've found so far.
