Launch of the GREAT08 PASCAL Challenge

We are delighted to announce the launch of the GRavitational lEnsing Accuracy Testing 2008 (GREAT08) PASCAL Challenge.

The GREAT08 Challenge is an image analysis competition for gravitational lensing and cosmology, aimed at experts in statistical problems (non-astronomers). The competition runs for 6 months, until 30 April 2009.

Please find more information at the challenge website http://www.great08challenge.info

There are 200GB of simulated galaxy images to download http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dcrd4nqb_138dr64tf4r , a live leaderboard containing results from GREAT08 Team members https://great08.projects.phys.ucl.ac.uk/leaderboard and you can download the code we used to get these results http://great08challenge.pbwiki.com

You are invited to join us for an (IP) videoconference to introduce the challenge and answer your questions at 4pm GMT on Tuesday (4th Nov). Please reply to this message or email questions@great08challenge.info for the connection details.

Sarah Bridle and John Shawe-Taylor, on behalf of the GREAT08 Team