| Authors and Co-Authors: | Akanksha Manojkumar Tiwary(1), Megha Rajoria(1), Viswajith Govinda Rajan(1), Sumanta
Kumar Sahoo(1), Lavanya Nemani(1), Sagar Sethi(1), Arpita Misra(1), Mitali
Damle(1), Shilpa Dubal(1), Karuna Gamre(1), Pradeepta Mohanty(1), Anjali
Amesh(1), Avinash Kumar(1), Gitika Mall(1), Alakananda Patra(1), Charitarth
Vyas(1), Aikya Shah(1), Ankit Vaghasiya(1), Ankita Das(1), Ashutosh Sharma(1),
Bhargav Reddy(1), Debaiudh Das(1), Devanshu Shrivastava(1), Dwiti Krushna Das(1),
Joydeep Naskar(1), Kavil Mehta(1), Raveena Dandona(1), Rohith Sai Shashank(1),
Ronaldo Laishram(1), Sushrut Mane(1), Sayali Kulkarni(1), Pratik Dabhade(1),
Sravani Vaddi(1,2), Chiranjib Konar(1,3), Ananda Hota(1,4)
1. RAD@home Astronomy Collaboratory, India
2. National Centre for Radio Astrophysics - TIFR, Pune, India
3. Amity University, Noida, India
4. UM-DAE Centre for Excellence in Basic Scieces, Mumbai, India
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| Abstract: | Launched in the hyperconnected, big data era with the primary motive of tapping into India’s growing population of STEM undergraduates, graduates and the freely available GMRT online archive, RAD@home (#RADathomeIndia) has emerged as the
nation's first successful citizen-science research platform. This zero-funded, zero-infrastructure collaboratory is leveraging various open access tools such as NASA Skyview, NASA NED, ds9, Hubble Archive, VLA Archive, Google and Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/groups/RADathome/).Adopting Any
BSc/BE Can Do research (#ABCDresearch) using GMRT sitting at home anywhere in India approach, there are over 2400 Indian members in the group comprising of students,employed/unemployed individuals participating in astronomy education and research from home. Since its launching in April 2013, over 100 members have been trained by professionals during RAD@home
Discovery Camps (RDC) held across India at various institutes namely Institute of Physics (IOP,Bhubaneshwar), Harishchandra Research Institute (HRI, Allahabad), UM-DAE Centre for Excellence in Basic Sciences (CEBS, Mumbai), Nehru Planetarium-New Delhi, and Vigyan
Prasar-DST. These RDC-trained citizen scientists or e-astronomers continue to participate in nation-wide, inter-university multi-wavelength extragalactic astronomy research
through online e-class e-research sessions (3hrs/week). The TIFR GMRT Sky Survey (TGSS) is the primary data from which e-astronomers discover exotic black hole galaxy systems for GMRT to follow up. Under the GOOD-RAC (GMRT Observation of Objects
Discovered by RAD@home Astronomy Collaboratory) project, the group was awarded observing time by the by GMRT Time Allocation Committee (GTAC), in four different cycles, after
going through standard international competition/review process. In GOOD-RAC e-astronomers, as Co-Investigators, collaborate with national/international professional astronomers as a perfect Professional-Amateur (Pro-Am) collaboration.
The newly discovered sources, that have been recently imaged by upgraded GMRT, include new Speca-like galaxies, episodic radio galaxies, relic-lobe radio galaxies, a few Z- and X-shaped radio galaxies, intriguing cases of jet-galaxy interaction (labouratory for AGN-feedback), diffuse radio relic/halo in clusters, a few diffuse or bent-lobe radio galaxies tracing cosmic accretion onto clusters through filaments etc. Unlike conventional education programs, those who get involved with RAD@home not only learn but also directly contribute to
astronomy research from initial one-week of RDC interaction itself. Over the years, this association has
proven to be a powerful catalyst due which over a dozen members of the group have been selected for higher studies in different parts of the world. The wide implications of this innovative citizen-science research collaboratory have been documented in two international publications (Hota et al. 2014, 2016)and multiple national/international conferences. Interested readers can join the
Facebook group and participate in foundational e-learning sessions to get selected for the RDC and ODRAW being planned in ICTS-TIFR and IISc, respectively, in Bangalore.
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