Spektra: Jurnal Fisika dan Aplikasinya
Vol. 10 No. 3 (2025): SPEKTRA: Jurnal Fisika dan Aplikasinya, Volume 10 Issue 3, December 2025

Comparative Study of Activation Functions and Image Resolution on ResNet-34 for Spiral Galaxy Spin Classification

Arwinata, Hafiz Indra (Unknown)
Kusuma, Sultan Hadi (Unknown)
Jaelani, Anton Timur (Unknown)



Article Info

Publish Date
22 Dec 2025

Abstract

This study investigates the application of the Residual Network (ResNet-34) architecture for classifying spiral galaxy spin directions, specifically focusing on the comparative performance of activation functions and cross-dataset generalizability using data derived from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument Legacy Survey (DESI LS) and the Hyper Suprime Cam Subaru Strategic Program (HSC-SSP) surveys. The methodology ensures robustness by training each model configuration across 10 independent runs. The results demonstrate the clear superiority of the Rectified Linear Unit (ReLU) over the Hyperbolic Tangent (Tanh); ReLU-based models achieved a mean peak accuracy of 94.7% and required only less than 60 epochs to converge, significantly faster than Tanh's 120 epochs. Crucially, we found that models trained on lower-resolution DESI LS images exhibited superior robustness and generalizability compared to high-resolution-trained models, suggesting that low-resolution training acts as effective implicit regularization. This research provides critical design recommendations for efficient machine learning pipelines, particularly for upcoming facilities like the 3.8-meter telescope at Timau National Observatory (TNO), ensuring model stability and transferability across diverse survey conditions.

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