Colourful galaxies

Saw a lot of these colourful galaxies in the last 30 mins. Anyone knows the reason why they have such bright colours?

http://talk.galaxyzoo.org/objects/AGZ00019gm
http://talk.galaxyzoo.org/objects/AGZ00019gn
http://talk.galaxyzoo.org/objects/AGZ00019yz
http://talk.galaxyzoo.org/objects/AGZ0001ahh

Thanks

Posted September 15, 2012 6:00 PM

by ElisabethB moderator

most of them are probably stars.
And the bright an psychedelic colors are optical artefacts

Posted September 15, 2012 6:03 PM

by karthikeyan.d

Could some of these be galaxies (with the colours being optical artefacts)? Some seem to have a nucleus

http://talk.galaxyzoo.org/objects/AGZ00030i5

and some look like mergers.

http://talk.galaxyzoo.org/objects/AGZ00019at

Thanks

Posted September 15, 2012 6:21 PM

by ElisabethB moderator

the 'nucleus' is an optical caused artefact caused by over exposure.
the 'merger' could be two stars close together.

Posted September 15, 2012 6:23 PM

by Edd scientist

Many of these are a result of problems during the observation - possibly poor weather conditions which affected the observations in one filter more than others. As a result of this being raised by people in the Zoo we've looked into it and will be able to filter many of these out automatically from our science results using other information we get from the database of observations, and get better science as a result - thanks!

Posted September 15, 2012 7:00 PM

by karthikeyan.d

Elisabeth, Edd,

Thanks for the details.

Posted September 16, 2012 8:59 AM

by karthikeyan.d

They're back! Just encountered a bunch of them. And they are watching us closely!! See this

http://www.galaxyzoo.org/#/examine/AGZ0004cpz

BTW, are these just stars, as mentioned a few days ago? The SkyServer database labels this one a galaxy.

Posted October 19, 2012 3:25 PM