Black Hole Finder

An active citizen science observatory connecting public classification, telescope observations, researcher workflows, community and machine-learning support.

Open the web app Read the case study

Black Hole Finder citizen science interface

A public task inside an active research programme

Black Hole Finder invites participants to inspect astronomy observations and classify candidate signals. Their work becomes part of a larger research workflow that includes incoming BlackGEM observations, discussion, researcher review, machine-learning assistance and selected telescope follow-up.

The platform does not promise that every candidate is a discovery. It makes the path from public classification to scientific attention visible and gives participants a reason to keep learning.

A complete citizen science observatory

Participate anywhere

Web, iOS and Android interfaces make the classification task accessible across devices.

Community and support

Discussion and guidance help participants improve rather than classify in isolation.

Research workflow

Classification, candidate review, reports and telescope context are connected for the research team.

Continuing operation

The platform and university relationship continue beyond the initial software delivery.

Use Black Hole Finder

Selected follow-up reports

These reports preserve examples of the follow-up workflow without making an unsupported discovery claim.

What this demonstrates for researchers

Black Hole Finder shows Pocket Science acting as technology, outreach and operational partner: turning a specialist task into an inviting public experience, connecting it to live research systems, supporting the community and maintaining the service over time.

Planning a classification project or complete observatory? Tell us what participants and researchers need to do.