Topic awaiting preservation: Astronomy and/or Art - REAL Space Scenes

I don't know how many of you are interested in astronomy, or space art per se. but ...

Coming from the Space Agency, I was helping out a friend (graphics image manipulation software & PHP GD author) to get hold of some unprocessed Hubble images to use as test material for his scientific data cleaning algorythms, and one of the e-mail exchanges had some really interestind references in it ...

A Photoshop plugin, designed and built by the Hubble scientists thenselves, to help amamteur astronomers to interpret and manipulate the Hubble **RAW** image archive. Now you can try out a simple version of the software which produces the finished images on the http://hubble.esa.int site. So if you want to see and do ...

take a look at http://www.spacetelescope.org/projects/fits_liberator to read about the FITS Liberator plug-in for Photoshop

and http://www.spacetelescope.org/projects/fits_liberator/datasets.html to get your hands on some datasets (HST WFPC2 B associations) that can be turned into colour images together with 'end-results' for 'bench-marking'.

More info about how to do this at: http://www.spacetelescope.org/projects/fits_liberator/improc.html



Enjoy ....


P.S. - I forgot to mention - if you get deeply into it all, and want more data, then the full archive is also accessible. Here's how http://www.spacetelescope.org/projects/fits_liberator/archives.html ... but beware - Ypu'll need some knowledge of how to specify your targets if you want to use the archive - there's no browser for that many images ...


Bug-free software only exisits in two places
In a programmer's mind and on a salesman's lips

(Edited by trib on 11-18-2004 09:13)

(Edited by trib on 11-18-2004 09:25)

That is simply toooo cool! =) So much for spending less time in front of the screen. bastard. ;D

By the way .. did you ever wonder why some Hubble pictures are that odd "stepped" shape ?? Here's an explanation, along with some interesting background to image construction and colouration ... http://hubblesite.org/sci.d.tech/behind_the_pictures/ ...

Sorry NoJive ... that's the nature of my job - Keeps me riveted to the screen 8-12 hours a day - just fascinating - and this is just the visible light part of the spectrum. You should see waht we're doing at the ghigh and low ends of the spectrum too

enjoy ...


Bug-free software only exisits in two places
In a programmer's mind and on a salesman's lips

I just can't get enough of these images. Thanks Trib I visit the Hubble Space Site a lot.
Can hardly wait to see the images that come back from Cassini-Huygens early in the new year.