Astronomers at Oxford University are calling on the world’s armchair star-gazers to help them in a new quest to identify mysterious galactic objects.

The scientists will make 250,000 pictures available to about 150,000 online volunteers, to try to create a ‘Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxies’.

The project, originally called Galaxy Zoo, began in 2007 using a website called Galaxy Zoo 2.

Dr Chris Lintott, who founded the first project with scientists from several other universities, said the images would take him and his team hundreds of years to sift though on their own.

He said: “In the first 48 hours of the project our ‘Zooites’ had done the equivalent of eight months’ work by a PhD student.

“The public are brilliant at this, better than the professionals, so this year we are asking people to be more involved.

“The first Galaxy Zoo provided us with a rough guide to the sky and now we want our users to fill in all the details.”

The programme works by posting the pictures of the galaxies online. Volunteers then remotely study a series of pictures of galaxies and tell scientists their findings.

Dr Lintott said the volunteers were asked to focus on whether the galaxies had more of a ‘spirally’ shape or whether they could detect a ‘peanut’-shaped bulge, made up of clusters of stars.

People are free to look up as many galaxies as they want and Dr Lintott said that even five minutes’ work could help.

Last year, a Dutch primary schoolteacher helped astronomers find a new galactic phenomenon.

Hanny Van Arkel spotted the ‘cosmic ghost’ after she chanced upon the website.

Since her discovery the phenomenon – a kind of shadow left by what is known as a supermassive black hole – has been named Hanny’s Object. It is still baffling scientists, Dr Lintott added: “We hope this year, with the help of our volunteers, many more unusual discoveries like Hanny’s will be made.”

  • To join in the search, log on to the website galaxyzoo.org