We introduce a continuous depth version of the Residual Network (ResNet) called Neural ordinary differential equations (NODE) for the purpose of galaxy morphology classification. We carry out a classification of galaxy images from the Galaxy Zoo 2 dataset, consisting of five distinct classes, and obtained an accuracy between 91-95\%, depending on the image class. We train NODE with different numerical techniques such as adjoint and Adaptive Checkpoint Adjoint (ACA) and compare them against ResNet. While ResNet has certain drawbacks, such as time consuming architecture selection (e.g. the number of layers) and the requirement of a large dataset needed for training, NODE can overcome these limitations. Through our results, we show that that the accuracy of NODE is comparable to ResNet, and the number of parameters used is about one-third as compared to ResNet, thus leading to a smaller memory footprint, which would benefit next generation surveys.
We introduce an empirical methodology to study how the spectral energy distribution (SED) and galaxy morphology constrain each other and implement this on 8000 galaxies from the HST CANDELS survey in the GOODS-South field. We show that the SED does constrain morphology and present a method that quantifies the strength of the link between these two quantities. Two galaxies with very similar SEDs are around three times more likely to also be morphologically similar, with SED constraining morphology most strongly for relatively massive red ellipticals. We apply our methodology to explore likely u…
We train three convolutional neural networks (CNNs) to classify galaxies with Galaxy Zoo 2 dataset and extract the activations from the last fully connected layer or the last average pooling layer of CNNs to study the high-dimensional abstract feature representations of galaxy images. We apply t-Distributed Stochastic Neighbour Embedding (t-SNE), a popular dimensionality reduction technique, to visualize the high-dimensional galaxy feature representations in two-dimensional scatter plots. From the visualization, we try to understand the galaxy images data itself and obtain some highly valuable…
We propose a variant of residual networks (ResNets) for galaxy morphology classification. The variant, together with other popular convolutional neural networks (CNNs), are applied to a sample of 28790 galaxy images from Galaxy Zoo 2 dataset, to classify galaxies into five classes, i.e. completely round smooth, in-between smooth (between completely round and cigar-shaped), cigar-shaped smooth, edge-on and spiral. A variety of metrics, such as accuracy, precision, recall, F1 value and AUC, show that the proposed network achieves the state-of-the-art classification performance among the networks…
This paper presents machine learning experiments performed over results of galaxy classification into elliptical (E) and spiral (S) with morphological parameters: concetration (CN), assimetry metrics (A3), smoothness metrics (S3), entropy (H) and gradient pattern analysis parameter (GA). Except concentration, all parameters performed a image segmentation pre-processing. For supervision and to compute confusion matrices, we used as true label the galaxy classification from GalaxyZoo. With a 48145 objects dataset after preprocessing (44760 galaxies labeled as S and 3385 as E), we performed exper…
Quantifying galaxy morphology is a challenging yet scientifically rewarding task. As the scale of data continues to increase with upcoming surveys, traditional classification methods will struggle to handle the load. We present a solution through an integration of visual and automated classifications, preserving the best features of both human and machine. We demonstrate the effectiveness of such a system through a re-analysis of visual galaxy morphology classifications collected during the Galaxy Zoo 2 (GZ2) project. We reprocess the top level question of the GZ2 decision tree with a Bayesian…
The classification of galaxy morphology plays a crucial role in understanding galaxy formation and evolution. Traditionally, this process is done manually. The emergence of deep learning techniques has given room for the automation of this process. As such, this paper offers a comparison of deep learning architectures to determine which is best suited for optical galaxy morphology classification. Adapting the model training method proposed by Walmsley et al in 2021, the Zoobot Python library is used to train models to predict Galaxy Zoo DECaLS decision tree responses, made by volunteers, using…
Galaxies of rare morphology are of paramount scientific interest, as they carry important information about the past, present, and future universe. Once a rare galaxy is identified, studying it more effectively requires a set of galaxies of similar morphology, allowing generalization and statistical analysis that cannot be done when $N=1$. Databases generated by digital sky surveys can contain a very large number of galaxy images, and therefore once a rare galaxy of interest is identified it is possible that more instances of the same morphology are also present in the database. However, when …
We demonstrate the use of Haralick features for the automated classification of radio galaxies. The set of thirteen Haralick features represent an extremely compact non-parametric representation of image texture, and are calculated directly from imagery using the Grey Level Co-occurrence Matrix (GLCM). The GLCM is an encoding of the relationship between the intensity of neighbouring pixels in an image. Using 10,000 sources detected in the first data release of the LOFAR Two-metre Sky Survey (LoTSS), we demonstrate that Haralick features are highly efficient, rotationally invariant descriptors …
Morphological classification is a key piece of information to define samples of galaxies aiming to study the large-scale structure of the universe. In essence, the challenge is to build up a robust methodology to perform a reliable morphological estimate from galaxy images. Here, we investigate how to substantially improve the galaxy classification within large datasets by mimicking human classification. We combine accurate visual classifications from the Galaxy Zoo project with machine and deep learning methodologies. We propose two distinct approaches for galaxy morphology: one based on non-…
We examine morphology-separated color-mass diagrams to study the quenching of star formation in $\sim 100,000$ ($z\sim0$) Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and $\sim 20,000$ ($z\sim1$) Cosmic Assembly Near-Infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey (CANDELS) galaxies. To classify galaxies morphologically, we developed Galaxy Morphology Network (GaMorNet), a convolutional neural network that classifies galaxies according to their bulge-to-total light ratio. GaMorNet does not need a large training set of real data and can be applied to data sets with a range of signal-to-noise ratios and spatial re…
We conduct a comprehensive study of the effects of incorporating galaxy morphology information in photometric redshift estimation. Using machine learning methods, we assess the changes in the scatter and catastrophic outlier fraction of photometric redshifts when galaxy size, ellipticity, Sérsic index and surface brightness are included in training on galaxy samples from the SDSS and the CFHT Stripe-82 Survey (CS82). We show that by adding galaxy morphological parameters to full $ugriz$ photometry, only mild improvements are obtained, while the gains are substantial in cases where fewer passba…
We successfully demonstrate the use of explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) techniques on astronomical datasets in the context of measuring galactic bar lengths. The method consists of training convolutional neural networks on human classified data from Galaxy Zoo in order to predict general galaxy morphologies, and then using SmoothGrad (a saliency mapping technique) to extract the bar for measurement by a bespoke algorithm. We contrast this to another method of using a convolutional neural network to directly predict galaxy bar lengths. These methods achieved correlation coefficients of…
Hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy formation and evolution attempt to fully model the physics that shapes galaxies. The agreement between the morphology of simulated and real galaxies, and the way the morphological types are distributed across galaxy scaling relations are important probes of our knowledge of galaxy formation physics. Here we propose an unsupervised deep learning approach to perform a stringent test of the fine morphological structure of galaxies coming from the Illustris and IllustrisTNG (TNG100 and TNG50) simulations against observations from a subsample of the Sloan Digita…
Understanding morphological types of galaxies is a key parameter for studying their formation and evolution. Neural networks that have been used previously for galaxy morphology classification have some disadvantages, such as not being invariant under rotation. In this work, we studied the performance of Capsule Network, a recently introduced neural network architecture that is rotationally invariant and spatially aware, on the task of galaxy morphology classification. We designed two evaluation scenarios based on the answers from the question tree in the Galaxy Zoo project. In the first scena…
Establishing accurate morphological measurements of galaxies in a reasonable amount of time for future big-data surveys such as EUCLID, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope or the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope is a challenge. Because of its high level of abstraction with little human intervention, deep learning appears to be a promising approach. Deep learning is a rapidly growing discipline that models high-level patterns in data as complex multilayered networks. In this work we test the ability of deep convolutional networks to provide parametric properties of Hubble Space Telescope li…
In recent years, large scale data intensive astronomical surveys have resulted in more detailed images being produced than scientists can manually classify. Even attempts to crowd-source this work will soon be outpaced by the large amount of data generated by modern surveys. This has brought into question the viability of human-based methods for classifying galaxy morphology. While supervised learning methods require datasets with existing labels, unsupervised learning techniques do not. Therefore, this paper implements unsupervised learning techniques to classify the Galaxy Zoo DECaLS dataset…
From Galaxy Zoo DECaLS to BASS/MzLS: detailed galaxy morphology classification with unsupervised domain adaption
Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院上海天文台）；School of Astronomy and Space Science, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院大学天文与空间科学学院）；Shanghai Key Lab for Astrophysics, Shanghai Normal University（上海师范大学上海市天体物理重点实验室）；Centre for Astrophysics Research, University of Hertfordshire（赫特福德大学天体物理研究中心）
In this work, we studied the impact of galaxy morphology on photometric redshift (photo-$z$) probability density functions (PDFs). By including galaxy morphological parameters like the radius, axis-ratio, surface brightness and the Sérsic index in addition to the $ugriz$ broadbands as input parameters, we used the machine learning photo-$z$ algorithm ANNz2 to train and test on galaxies from the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Stripe-82 (CS82) Survey. Metrics like the continuous ranked probability score (CRPS), probability integral transform (PIT), Bayesian odds parameter, and even the width and…
The large number of galaxies imaged by digital sky surveys reinforces the need for computational methods for analyzing galaxy morphology. While the morphology of most galaxies can be associated with a stage on the Hubble sequence, morphology of galaxy mergers is far more complex due to the combination of two or more galaxies with different morphologies and the interaction between them. Here we propose a computational method based on unsupervised machine learning that can quantitatively analyze morphologies of galaxy mergers and associate galaxies by their morphology. The method works by first …
Ghent University（根特大学）；University of Minnesota（明尼苏达大学）
Measuring the morphological parameters of galaxies is a key requirement for studying their formation and evolution. Surveys such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) have resulted in the availability of very large collections of images, which have permitted population-wide analyses of galaxy morphology. Morphological analysis has traditionally been carried out mostly via visual inspection by trained experts, which is time-consuming and does not scale to large ($\gtrsim10^4$) numbers of images. Although attempts have been made to build automated classification systems, these have not been abl…
Structural properties posses valuable information about the formation and evolution of galaxies, and are important for understanding the past, present, and future universe. Here we use unsupervised machine learning methodology to analyze a network of similarities between galaxy morphological types, and automatically deduce a morphological sequence of galaxies. Application of the method to the EFIGI catalog show that the morphological scheme produced by the algorithm is largely in agreement with the De Vaucouleurs system, demonstrating the ability of computer vision and machine learning methods…
We present an unsupervised machine learning technique that automatically segments and labels galaxies in astronomical imaging surveys using only pixel data. Distinct from previous unsupervised machine learning approaches used in astronomy we use no pre-selection or pre-filtering of target galaxy type to identify galaxies that are similar. We demonstrate the technique on the HST Frontier Fields. By training the algorithm using galaxies from one field (Abell 2744) and applying the result to another (MACS0416.1-2403), we show how the algorithm can cleanly separate early and late type galaxies wit…
The ESA Gaia mission, to be launched during 2013, will observe billions of objects, among which many galaxies, during its scanning of the sky. This will provide a large space-based dataset with unprecedented spatial resolution. Because of its natural Galactic and Astrometric priority, Gaia's observational strategy was optimized for point sources. Nonetheless, it is expected that 10^6 sources will be extragalactic, and a large portion of them will be angularly small galaxies. Although the mission was designed for point sources, a dedicated analysis of the raw data will allow the recovery of mor…
