DIY Astronomical Images With The Hubble Touch

SPACE SCOPES

bringing it all down to Earth

Greenbelt MD (SPX) Jul 09, 2004
For many years astronomical images from the world's telescopes were reserved for an elite of astronomers and technical people. Now anyone with a desktop computer running Adobe Photoshop software can try their hand at crafting astronomical images as beautiful as those from the Hubble Space Telescope.

A free software plug-in, released today, makes a treasure trove of archival astronomical images and spectra from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope, the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton X-ray observatory, NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and many other famous telescopes accessible to home astronomy enthusiasts.

If there is anything that unites astronomy, it is the worldwide use of a single file format - nearly all the images of stars and galaxies produced by telescopes on the ground and in space are stored as so-called FITS files.

Unfortunately this file format has been accessible to very few people other than professional scientists using highly specialised image-processing tools.

Now a new and unique tool - the ESA/ESO/NASA Photoshop FITS Liberator - developed by imaging scientists at the European Space Agency, the European Southern Observatory and NASA makes the immense wealth of astronomical images and spectra stored in data archives around the world accessible to the layman.

The only thing required is access to either Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Photoshop Elements, both leading image software packages.

For the professional creators of astronomical colour images, the plug-in revolutionises the workflow of the creation of colour images from raw data and gives a huge boost to the image quality by giving access to the full 16 bit (65536 colours) range of the observations.

In addition the plug in may be used as a powerful educational tool when teaching about light, colour and digital images.

The ESA/ESO/NASA Photoshop FITS Liberator will be released today and is freely available for download . The equivalent plug-in for the free image processing desktop program (GIMP, Gnu Image Manipulation Program) is also available to handle FITS file formats for astronomical images.

Head of the development team, Lars Holm Nielsen from Denmark, says, "FITS is much more than just an image format. It is an extremely flexible file format that allows astronomers to share images and spectra in many different ways. This very versatility has made the job of producing a plug-in for Photoshop challenging. Compared to formats like JPEG, FITS files can be incredibly diverse."

SPACE SCOPES

Herschel Mirror On The Move

Turku, Finland (SPX) Jul 08, 2004
The Herschel telescope primary mirror blank has now been machined to its final shape and thickness. After the machining was completed, the mirror blank was thoroughly tested and inspected to check the integrity of its construction.

Thanks for being here; We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain. With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords. Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year. If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceDaily Contributor $5 Billed Once credit card or paypal		SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter $5 Billed Monthly paypal only

The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2016 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement All images and articles appearing on Space Media Network have been edited or digitally altered in some way. Any requests to remove copyright material will be acted upon in a timely and appropriate manner. Any attempt to extort money from Space Media Network will be ignored and reported to Australian Law Enforcement Agencies as a potential case of financial fraud involving the use of a telephonic carriage device or postal service.