Star Notes – Project PHaEDRA’s Zooniverse collections

Last month while perusing the internet I saw something of interest to me – getting involved in research. Zooniverse Collections is the world’s largest and most popular platform for volunteer-based research. This research is made possible by more than a million people worldwide who come together to assist professional researchers. The projects are varied and numerous, featuring the arts, biology, climate, history, language, literature, medicine, nature, physics, social science, and space.

Currently, I’m involved in Star Notes, a collection of digitized notebooks of the Harvard Computers and early Harvard astronomers. As one who’s always been fascinated by the heavens, I decided to join the team, by helping them to identify astronomical sketches, graphs, and other non-textual information within their notebooks. When I find an object, I draw a rectangle to identify the non-textual items and indicate whether it’s 1) an astronomical sketch. 2) a diagram or graph, 3) inserted material, 4) a doodle, or 5) other, then submit that particular page. 

The image to the left shows one of the pages I saved this evening, displaying a diagram (you can see the box indicated in green). 

I’m also including a few other selections I ran across this evening, including pages that were simply textual in nature, ranging from the mid 1800’s to the 1920’s. Many include tables regarding star observations from specific evenings, references to particular astronomical glass plates, remarks on variable stars, star/nebula positions, magnitudes, and much more. 

I love seeing a name scribbled across the top of the page and attempt to picture them at work, always hoping I will run across someone I will recognize from the book, The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars – by Dava Sobel.

Maybe you’ll want to get involved in one of the projects too, and see your name listed as a volunteer researcher.

March 5, 2024 – I was informed today that I have logged in over 4000 pgs in the research project. Needless to say, I was astounded. And I continue on.