In case you haven’t heard yet (and according to my friend Arie that means you’ve been living under a rock the whole of last year), Hanny’s Voorwerp is a major discovery and therefore you could expect some scientific papers about it. The first one is out now…
It was indeed about a year ago or so that Chris asked my permission to make me a co-author of the paper he, and other scientists from Galaxy Zoo, were going to write about my discovery. Obviously I agreed, even though I had to get used to the fact that my name was on an article of which I didn’t write one word. Chris laughed about my cluelessness and promised he would explain it to me later, which he did when we were at Patrick’s.
Often people have asked me what it is like to be a co-author of something like this and how the astronomers from different places work together to write it. It’s cool to see how that works. One of the guys sends the draft to everyone else and then all of them reply with suggestions to improve it, which results in another draft to all of us, until everyone has replied to everyone they approve. Then it will be submitted and an outsider will have a critical look at it, gives all of us more feedback, until it’s finally perfect. (My mailbox is very crowded since this co-authoring, but it’s fun).
So, we were working on this when I got a call from Michael Garrett – general director of ASTRON. He and a few colleagues from the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy wanted to investigate my Voorwerp too and asked me if I wanted to join their team as well. He gave me some time to think about it, and I asked Chris what this was all about. He said this was bad news, as the telescope in Westerbork was on our wish list too. But he also said it was good news, as apparently people were taking us seriously. He advised me to go for it and enjoy the ride, but: I couldn’t talk to him about their findings, as that wouldn’t be fair! This was just how it works.
I called back and told Mike what Chris had advised me and before I knew it, we were one big time, fortunately. There was one little problem though: the people judging our paper expect every author to be affiliated with a university or institute, something which I don’t have. Mike fixed this by giving me a formal, Astron honourary affiliation and this paper is out now! You can find a direct link to it at the bottom of this column. Chris wrote about it on the Galaxy Zoo blog as well, which worried a few readers, as he said he would’ve liked the Galaxy Zoo paper to be published first. But, to reassure you all, I asked him and he said he’s happy the observations were done, and “even more intrigued as to what this damn thing is” – which is indeed what it’s all about, if you ask me.
Revealing Hanny’s Voorwerp: radio observations of IC 2497.
12 Comments
Fantastic news, Hanny. You rightly deserve to have your name on that paper.
Well done to you and your team(s)
:):)
Very 8) to see the real science coming out or your find. Well done HH and co-authors
Congratulations, Hanny, on your first paper on your discovery. I downloaded a copy from the arXiv eprint server May 13th. I know the Zoo team hoped to be in print first, but, hey, that’s how science works. At the same time, everybody wants to know what the heck this is, so it’s pretty cool to be working with 2 teams researching this object! Looking forward to the Zoo paper.
Thank you guys!
The Times They Are a-Changin’, as Dylan was singing. First your Astron honourary affiliation, than your drivers license (the pink paper) and at the end the first paper on HV! Congratulations with all this.
Thanks! But the hard work on this one has been done by the friendly people in Dwingeloo.
Hanny, you’ve mentioned elsewhere that you hope to have HST observations of this object. I’m curious as to what instrument(s), specifically, that you have arranged to collect data ?
Hi Jon, good question! Our proposal was accepted almost a year ago now, but I have no idea about those instruments. I know an expert who does though, so will give him a poke. Watch this space!
Alright, and the expert said: “WFC 3, ACS and STIS”. You can find more details here: http://www.galaxyzooblog.org/2008/07/07/hubble-meet-galaxy-zoo-galaxy-zoo-meet-hubble/
Great! I’m looking forward to download and read the paper!
Overigens vind ik het als chauvinistische Nederlander fantastisch dat een dergelijk mysterieus object gewoon als “internationale” naam “Voorwerp” draagt
Thanks, Hanny, for the info & the link. As of today, it looks like all 3 ought to be available ! Can’t wait to see the dataset there
@ DaMatriX: ja, dat vind ik ook erg grappig!
@ Jon: indeed, and me neither.
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[...] Two months ago I shed some light on how we wrote the papers about Hanny’s Voorwerp. The one from the team at ASTRON was just out and recently the one from the Galaxy Zoo team came out too. [...]