Abstract
We have seen that the classification of galaxies is a very complex task but that it is not impossible to automate it. This can be useful both to objectively process large sets of data and to centralize and structure different kinds of expertise (in image processing, observation and classification); this last point becomes crucial with the multiplication of sensors used and the consequent difficulty of performing multisensor analysis.
The development of instrumentation (an ever increasing number of galaxies are studied with CCDs) will give us much new information. Knowledge of the morphology of these objects will greatly increase. This will surely lead us to refine prevalent classification schemes.
The method described in this chapter can easily be extended to the study of objects other than galaxies; for instance to the study of clusters.
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Accomazzi, A., Bordogna, G., Mussio P. and Rampini A. (1989), “Rule based description and plausible classification of objects in digitized images”, Data Analysis in Astronomy III, V. Di Gesú, L. Scarsi, P. Crane, J.H. Friedman, S. Levialdi and M.C. Maccarone (eds.), Plenum Press, New York, in press.
Bijaoui, A. (1980), “Sky background estimation and application”, Astronomy and Astrophysics, 84, 81–84.
Bijaoui, A. (1988) “Sampling effects in the analysis of astronomical objects”, IMACS 12th World Congress on Scientific Computation, R. Vichnevetsky, P. Borne, J. Vignes (eds.), Vol. 11, 316–317
Binggeli, B., Sandage, A. and Tamman, G.A. (1988), “The luminosity function of galaxies”, Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 26, 509–650.
Buta, R. (1988), “Galaxy morphology and classification”, Le Monde des Galaxies, Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg.
Cipiere, P. (1984), “Manuel de reference du logiciel INRIMAGE”, INRIA.
Debray, B. (1988), “Photométrie stellaire dans les champs encombrés pour l'étude des galaxies proches”, Thesis, University of Aix-Marseille III.
Di Gesú, V. and Maccarone, M.C. (1986), “Description of fuzzy images by convex hull technique”, Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Pattern Recognition ICPR9, Paris, France, Vol. 2, IEEE Computer Society Press, New York, 1276–1278.
Dressler, A. (1980), “Galaxy morphology in rich clusters”, Astrophysical Journal, 236, 351–365.
Faber, S. (1987) Dark Matter in the Universe, J. Kormendy (ed.), G.K. Knapp, 1–16.
Fairfield, J. (1989), “A nearly invisible grid”, Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, submitted.
Freeman, K.C. (1975), Galaxies and The Universe, A. Sandage, M. Sandage and J. Kristian (eds.), University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 409–508.
Granger, C. and de Mongareuil, A. (1987) “The reference manual”, ILOG.
Grosbøl, P. (1987), “Extraction of morphological parameters from images of galaxies”, Astronomy from Large Databases: Scientific Objectives and Methodological Approaches, F. Murtagh and A. Heck(eds.), European Southern Observatory, Garching bei München, 107–110.
Hanson, A. and Riseman, E. (1978), “VISIONS: A Computer System for Interpreting Scenes”, Computer Vision Systems, A. Hanson and E. Riseman (eds.), Academic Press, New York, 303.
Hayes-Roth, F., Waterman, D.A. and Lenat, D.B. (1983), Building Expert Systems, Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA.
Holmberg, E. (1975), Galaxies and The Universe A. Sandage, M. Sandage and J. Kristian (eds.), University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 123–158.
Hubble, E.P. (1926), Astrophysical Journal, 64, 321.
Hubble, E.P. (1936), The Realm of the Nebulae, Yale University Press, New Haven.
Jarvis, J.F. and Tyson, J.A. (1981), “Focas: Faint Object Classification and Analysis System”, Astronomical Journal, 86, 476
Johnson, H.M. (1961), “Photographic photometry of SO galaxies”, Astrophysical Journal, 133, 314–321.
Jones, W.B., Obbits, D.L., Gallet, R.M. and de Vaucouleurs, G. (1967), Publications of the Department of Astronomy, University of Texas, Austin Series 11 1 no. 8.
Kormendy, J. (1980), Two Dimensional Photometry, P. Crane and Kjär (eds.), European Southern Observatory, Garching bei München, 191–238.
Kurtz, M.J., Huchra, J.P., Beers, T.C., Geller, M.J., Gioia Maccaro, T., Schild, R.E. and Stauffer, J.R. (1985), “The X-ray cluster Abell 744”, Astrophysical Journal, 90, 1665–1675.
Le Févre, O., Bijaoui, A., Mathez, G., Picat, J.P. and Leliévre, G. (1986), “Electronographic BV photometry of three distant clusters of galaxies”, Astronomy and Astrophysics, 154, 92–99.
Lin, C.C., Yuan, C. and Shu F. (1969), “On the spiral structure of disk galaxies”, Astrophysical Journal, 155, 721–746.
MacGillivray, H.T. and Stobie, R.S. (1984), “New results with the COSMOS machine”, Vistas in Astronomy, 27, 433–475.
Martinet, L. (1985), “Contemporary dynamical problems — a possible contribution to their solution by galaxy photometry”, New Aspects of Galaxy Photometry, J.L. Nieto (ed.), Springer-Verlag, Berlin, p. 121–130.
Oort, J. (1984), The Big Bang and Georges Lemaitre, A. Berger (ed.), D. Reidel, Dordrecht, p. 299.
Peebles, P.J.E. (1980), The Large Scale Structure of the Universe, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey.
Pouget, S., Thonnat, M., Clément, V. and de Fombelle, A. J. (1988), “Automatic diagnosis of a technical device by classification, the expert system DANTE: an application to antenna failures”, 6th International Conference on Reliability and Maintainability, Strasbourg, France.
Rocca-Volmerange, B. (1985), “Fax-UV to infrared photometric star formation traces”, New Aspects of Galaxy Photometry, J.L. Nieto (ed.), Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 199–210.
Rosenfeld, A. (1969), Picture Processing by Computer, MacGraw-Hill, New York, p. 127.
Sandage, A. (1961), Hubble Atlas of Galaxies, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Pub. 618, Washington, D.C.
Sandage, A. (1969), “The reddening, age difference, and helium abundance of the globular clusters M3, M13, M15, and M92”, Astrophysical Journal, 157, 515–531.
Sandage, A. (1975), Galaxies and the Universe, A. Sandage and J. Kristian (eds.), University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Sersic, J.L. (1982), Extragalactic Astronomy, D. Reidel, Dordrecht.
Shortliffe, E.H. (1976), Computer-Based Medical Consultation: MYCIN, American Elsevier, New York.
Silk, J. (1986), Sky and Telescope, 72, 582–587.
Simien, F. and de Vaucouleurs, G. (1986), “Systematics of bulge-to-disk ratio”, Astrophysical Journal, 302,564–578.
Slezak, E., Bijaoui, A. and Mars G. (1988), “Galaxy counts in the Coma supercluster field”, Astronomy and Astrophysics, 201, 9–20.
Titterington, D.M. (1985), “General structure of regularization procedures in image reconstruction”, Astronomy and Astrophysics, 144, 381–387.
Thonnat, M. and Llebaria, A. (1981), Astronomical Photography, J.L. Heudier and M. Sim (eds.), CNRS-INAG Paris, 251–260.
Thonnat, M. (1982), Traitement Numérique des Images Astronomiques, A. Bijaoui (ed.), 255–279.
Thonnat, M. and Llebaria, A. (1983), Applications of Digital Image Processing, SPIE Proceedings Vol. 397, 454–461.
Thonnat, M. (1985), “Automatic morphological description of galaxies and classification by an expert system”, Rapport de Recherche, INRIA No. 387.
Thonnat, M. (1989), “Toward an automatic classification of galaxies”, Le Monde des Galaxies, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, in press.
Thonnat, M. and Clément, V. (1988), “OCAPI: a monitoring tool for the automatic control of image processing procedures” Proceedings of the 12th IMACS World Congress on Scientific Computation, Vol. II, R. Vichnevetsky, P. Borne and J. Vignes (eds.), 318–321.
Thonnat, M. and Clément, V. (1989), “OCAPI: an artificial tool for the automatic selection and control of image processing procedures”, Data Analysis in Astronomy III, V. Di Gesú, L. Scarsi, P. Crane, J.H. Friedman, S. Levialdi and M.C. Maccarone (eds.), Plenum Press, New York, in press.
Thonnat, M. and Gandelin, M.H. (1988), “An expert system for the automatic classification and description of zooplanktons from monocular images”, Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Pattern Recognition ICPR9, Rome, Italy, November 1988.
de Vaucouleurs, G. (1948), Annales d'Astrophysique, 11, p. 247.
de Vaucouleurs, G. (1959), “Classification,and morphology of external galaxies”, Handbuch der Physik, 53, p. 275.
de Vaucouleurs, G. (1970), Science, 167, 1203–1213.
de Vaucouleurs, G. (1976), Le Monde des Galaxies, Observatoire de Besançon et Laboratoire d'Astronomie de la Faculté des Sciences.
de Vaucouleurs, G. (1976), de Vaucouleurs, A. and Corwin, H.G. Jr. Second Reference Catalogue of Bright Galaxies (RC2), Texas University Press, Austin.
Watanabe, M., Kodaira, K. and Okamura S. (1982), “Digital surface photometry of galaxies: toward a quantitative classification”, Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, 50, 1–22.
Winston, P.H. (1987), Artificial Intelligence, Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA.
Wolf, M. (1908), Publ. Ap. Inst. König., Heidelberg, 3, No. 5.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1989 Springer-Verlag
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Thonnat, M., Bijaoui, A. (1989). Knowledge based classification of galaxies. In: Heck, A., Murtagh, F. (eds) Knowledge-Based Systems in Astronomy. Lecture Notes in Physics, vol 329. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-51044-3_21
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-51044-3_21
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-51044-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-46139-5
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive