Astronomy projects and using real data

Three people enjoy the summer sky over the Delaware river, NJ, USA during the Perseid meteor shower in August, 2006.
Image Caption
Three people enjoy the summer sky over the Delaware river, NJ, USA during the Perseid meteor shower in August, 2006. Source: Halfblue.

There are various ways that students can get involved with real astronomy projects using actual data.

If you are in a school you can work with the Institute for Research in Schools, do an EPQ.

Anyone can take part in some citizen science such as Galaxy Zoo.

There are many other ways you can get involved, and some useful links are listed below:

How to participate in astronomy projects

2dF galaxy redshift survey

2dF quasar redshift survey

2MASS The Two-Micron All-Sky Survey

AstroGrid A data-grid for UK astronomy, which will form the UK contribution to a global Virtual Observatory

ASTROVIRTEL Accessing Astronomical Archives as Virtual Telescopes

BiSON Birmingham Solar Oscillations Network

BOOMERanG Balloon Observations Of Millimetric Extragalactic Radiation and Geophysics

ESO Imaging Survey The ESO Imaging Survey (EIS) project is an ongoing effort to carry out a variety of public imaging surveys in support of VLT programmes

GOODS The Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey

ING Wide Field Camera Survey An umbrella for a variety of wide-field imaging programmes

Local Group Survey A photometric survey of the resolved stellar content of nearby galaxies currently forming stars

NEAT Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking

OGLE Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey

UKIDSS The UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey

The Virgo Consortium