Semantic search for 100M+ galaxy images using AI-generated captions
Paper
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2512.11982
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Published
image_rgb
imagewidth (px) 256
256
| ra
float64 0.23
360
| dec
float64 -18.05
31.3
| Galaxy10_DECals_index
int64 0
17.7k
| label
int64 0
9
| label_name
stringclasses 10
values | image_bands
listlengths 4
4
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
331.664055
| -0.484155
| 0
| 0
|
Disturbed Galaxies
| [[[-0.0008416670607402921,-0.000049735986976884305,0.0004517146444413811,-0.0009658996132202446,0.00(...TRUNCATED)
|
|
334.536578
| -1.189031
| 1
| 0
|
Disturbed Galaxies
| [[[0.002204909920692444,0.003065850120037794,0.0023220814764499664,0.000971015018876642,0.0012519503(...TRUNCATED)
|
|
341.90249
| -1.127418
| 2
| 0
|
Disturbed Galaxies
| [[[-0.0009214943856932223,-0.0011591496877372265,-0.0018473740201443434,-0.0007767273345962167,-0.00(...TRUNCATED)
|
|
349.948736
| 0.721128
| 5
| 0
|
Disturbed Galaxies
| [[[-0.00034882660838775337,-0.00028750451747328043,0.0008327479008585215,0.0008318768814206123,0.001(...TRUNCATED)
|
|
357.963393
| 0.761862
| 6
| 0
|
Disturbed Galaxies
| [[[0.0028065163642168045,0.0038861343637108803,0.005491235759109259,0.005320483352988958,0.005600524(...TRUNCATED)
|
|
338.706915
| -0.423358
| 7
| 0
|
Disturbed Galaxies
| [[[-0.000549136835616082,0.0002665338106453419,0.00021136525901965797,-0.0005009101587347686,0.00017(...TRUNCATED)
|
|
341.386936
| 0.444509
| 8
| 0
|
Disturbed Galaxies
| [[[0.0015863296575844288,0.0009175474988296628,0.0014429392758756876,0.0016257581301033497,-0.000082(...TRUNCATED)
|
|
343.387388
| -0.411879
| 9
| 0
|
Disturbed Galaxies
| [[[0.0011200582375749946,0.0012298383517190814,0.0008701500482857227,0.00027172695263288915,0.000878(...TRUNCATED)
|
|
351.795155
| 0.548457
| 10
| 0
|
Disturbed Galaxies
| [[[0.0003126341907773167,0.0003202661464456469,-0.0009212839649990201,-0.0011225800262764096,0.00064(...TRUNCATED)
|
|
359.576774
| -1.257976
| 11
| 0
|
Disturbed Galaxies
| [[[0.0009085460333153605,-0.000037813562812516466,0.0003392355574760586,0.0003562516940291971,-0.000(...TRUNCATED)
|
This dataset provides the exact train/test split used to produce the Galaxy Morphology Classification results in the AION-1 paper (Table 2, Section 7.2.2) and used in the AION-Search paper.
Classify galaxy images into 10 morphology classes from Galaxy Zoo DECaLS:
| Label | Class Name |
|---|---|
| 0 | Disturbed Galaxies |
| 1 | Merging Galaxies |
| 2 | Round Smooth Galaxies |
| 3 | In-between Round Smooth Galaxies |
| 4 | Cigar Shaped Smooth Galaxies |
| 5 | Barred Spiral Galaxies |
| 6 | Unbarred Tight Spiral Galaxies |
| 7 | Unbarred Loose Spiral Galaxies |
| 8 | Edge-on Galaxies without Bulge |
| 9 | Edge-on Galaxies with Bulge |
| Split | Count | Description |
|---|---|---|
| train | 7,120 | 90% class-stratified split |
| test | 796 | 10% held-out evaluation set |
These are the exact indices used in the AION-1 paper.
| Column | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
image_rgb |
image | 256x256x3 uint8 RGB from Galaxy10_DECals.h5 (PNG) |
ra |
float64 | Right ascension (degrees) |
dec |
float64 | Declination (degrees) |
Galaxy10_DECals_index |
int64 | Row index into Galaxy10_DECals.h5 |
label |
int64 | Morphology class (0-9) |
label_name |
string | Human-readable class name |
image_bands |
binary | 96x96 4-band (g,r,i,z) float32 cutout from Legacy Survey DR10 |
image_bands
The image_bands column stores float32 flux values as a nested list (4 bands x 96 x 96 pixels). To reconstruct:
import numpy as np
cutout = np.array(row["image_bands"], dtype=np.float32) # (4, 96, 96)
# cutout[0] = g-band, cutout[1] = r-band, cutout[2] = i-band, cutout[3] = z-band
To tokenize with the AION codec and compute embeddings:
import torch
from aion.codecs import CodecManager
from aion.modalities import LegacySurveyImage
from aion.model import AION
codec_manager = CodecManager(device="cuda")
model = AION.from_pretrained("polymathic-ai/aion-base").to("cuda").eval()
cutout = np.array(row["image_bands"], dtype=np.float32) # (4, 96, 96)
image_flux = torch.tensor(cutout).unsqueeze(0).to("cuda")
image = LegacySurveyImage(flux=image_flux, bands=["DES-G", "DES-R", "DES-I", "DES-Z"])
tokens = codec_manager.encode(image)
embeddings = model.encode({"tok_image": tokens["tok_image"]}, num_encoder_tokens=600)
mean_embedding = embeddings.mean(dim=1) # (1, 768)
| Model | Accuracy (%) |
|---|---|
| AION-B | 84.0 |
| AION-L | 87.2 |
| AION-XL | 86.5 |
| Oquab et al. (2023) | 71.4 |
| EfficientNet | 80.0 |
| Walmsley et al. (2022) | 89.6 |
| AION-Search | X |
The underlying image data is from the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys and Galaxy Zoo, subject to their respective data-use policies.