From Galaxy Zoo DECaLS to BASS/MzLS: detailed galaxy morphology classification with unsupervised domain adaption

The DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys (DESI-LIS) comprise three distinct surveys: the Dark Energy Camera Legacy Survey (DECaLS), the Beijing-Arizona Sky Survey (BASS), and the Mayall z-band Legacy Survey (MzLS). The citizen science project Galaxy Zoo DECaLS 5 (GZD-5) has provided extensive and detailed morphology labels for a sample of 253,287 galaxies within the DECaLS survey. This dataset has been foundational for numerous deep learning-based galaxy morphology classification studies. However, due to differences in signal-to-noise ratios and resolutions between the DECaLS images and those from BASS and MzLS (collectively referred to as BMz), a neural network trained on DECaLS images cannot be directly applied to BMz images due to distributional mismatch. In this study, we explore an unsupervised domain adaptation (UDA) method that fine-tunes a source domain model trained on DECaLS images with GZD-5 labels to BMz images, aiming to reduce bias in galaxy morphology classification within the BMz survey. Our source domain model, used as a starting point for UDA, achieves performance on the DECaLS galaxies' validation set comparable to the results of related works. For BMz galaxies, the fine-tuned target domain model significantly improves performance compared to the direct application of the source domain model, reaching a level comparable to that of the source domain. We also release a catalogue of detailed morphology classifications for 248,088 galaxies within the BMz survey, accompanied by usage recommendations.

From Images to Features: Unbiased Morphology Classification via Variational Auto-Encoders and Domain Adaptation

We present a novel approach for the dimensionality reduction of galaxy images by leveraging a combination of variational auto-encoders (VAE) and domain adaptation (DA). We demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach using a sample of low redshift galaxies with detailed morphological type labels from the Galaxy-Zoo DECaLS project. We show that 40-dimensional latent variables can effectively reproduce most morphological features in galaxy images. To further validate the effectiveness of our approach, we utilised a classical random forest (RF) classifier on the 40-dimensional latent variables to make detailed morphology feature classifications. This approach performs similarly to a direct neural network application on galaxy images. We further enhance our model by tuning the VAE network via DA using galaxies in the overlapping footprint of DECaLS and BASS+MzLS, enabling the unbiased application of our model to galaxy images in both surveys. We observed that noise suppression during DA led to even better morphological feature extraction and classification performance. Overall, this combination of VAE and DA can be applied to achieve image dimensionality reduction, defect image identification, and morphology classification in large optical surveys.

Active learning with RESSPECT: Resource allocation for extragalactic astronomical transients

The recent increase in volume and complexity of available astronomical data has led to a wide use of supervised machine learning techniques. Active learning strategies have been proposed as an alternative to optimize the distribution of scarce labeling resources. However, due to the specific conditions in which labels can be acquired, fundamental assumptions, such as sample representativeness and labeling cost stability cannot be fulfilled. The Recommendation System for Spectroscopic follow-up (RESSPECT) project aims to enable the construction of optimized training samples for the Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), taking into account a realistic description of the astronomical data environment. In this work, we test the robustness of active learning techniques in a realistic simulated astronomical data scenario. Our experiment takes into account the evolution of training and pool samples, different costs per object, and two different sources of budget. Results show that traditional active learning strategies significantly outperform random sampling. Nevertheless, more complex batch strategies are not able to significantly overcome simple uncertainty sampling techniques. Our findings illustrate three important points: 1) active learning strategies are a powerful tool to optimize the label-acquisition task in astronomy, 2) for upcoming large surveys like LSST, such techniques allow us to tailor the construction of the training sample for the first day of the survey, and 3) the peculiar data environment related to the detection of astronomical transients is a fertile ground that calls for the development of tailored machine learning algorithms.