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Xephem (a planetarium and analysis program for linux) is very cool because it can both pull the sky from your LX200 telescope or by replacing the telescope driver with a perl script, it can download part of the sky from an online database, after which you can do realtime image processing on it.

It can also match stars in the sky to stars in the database. So far I have only been able to pull down large segments of the sky at once, but as soon as I can clear the disk space I'll be trying some other pieces of software to try and download smaller pieces of the sky. Starry Night also downloads DSS (Digital Sky Survey) images I believe.

NASA Skyview service
Multimission Archive
StarView
Software for different platforms (or check freshmeat.net)
Serious scientific platforms/data
Skyview (available at IPAC) is available as linux binary and installs quickly at 10mb. It lets you do image analysis with text commands. I have not used it a lot myself.
AstroWeb

Xephem (a planetarium and analysis program for linux) is very cool because it can both pull the sky from your LX200 telescope or by replacing the telescope driver with a perl script, it can download part of the sky from an online database, after which you can do realtime image processing on it.

It can also match stars in the sky to stars in the database. So far I have only been able to pull down large segments of the sky at once, but as soon as I can clear the disk space I'll be trying some other pieces of software to try and download smaller pieces of the sky. Starry Night also downloads DSS (Digital Sky Survey) images I believe.

NASA Skyview service
Multimission Archive
StarView
Software for different platforms (or check freshmeat.net)
Serious scientific platforms/data
Skyview (available at IPAC) is available as linux binary and installs quickly at 10mb. It lets you do image analysis with text commands. I have not used it a lot myself.
AstroWeb

Works even better if you run Linux and can get IRAS running and have a good display, especially if you want to fool around with the Hubble archives. Professional astronomers have been doing their research on unixes for 20 plus years. Tools are available for the asking and most professionals and grad students are willing to help out an amateur who is serious. Linux brings, to an amateur, the same desktop power, but at a very low cost.

Astronomy is one of the few hard sciences where an amateur can contribute serious work, either with nothing more than a telescope and a webcam to digging into the very numerous digital archives that are available for free.

And to add to that, there is a long, long, tradition of amateurs and professional astronomers working together. For a great example see theAmerican Assoc. of Variable Star Observers.

Oh, not much really.

I'm sure some searching would reveal some details though.

There is a big dust storm happening on Mars right now, which's covered the whole planet. You can find more info and pictures on the linked website.

Why not NASA-sponsored rocketry competitions?

Why not recruit college students into NASA fellowships?

Why not a whole lot more visits to elementary schools?

Or maybe you'd like to see how:

NASA sponsors high school robotics

or how

NASA flies student designed experiements aboard the shuttle

NASA actually does spend a lot of time and money on reaching out to kids and enthusiasts alike. Yes, there is room for improvement, but give me a break, they are fighting a loosing battle just to get funding to safely deorbit spacecraft. And as for the simplicity of some of the displays at the centers, well I'm sorry that they don't have astrophysicits manning all the exhibits, they're off doing important science and engineering. If you really want to be a space enthusiast, support full funding so they have the money to do even more public outreach.

Anyhow, assuming you're serious:

• Try radio astronomy data. For example, pulsar searches (related to what I do, forgive my bias) use simple time series data I(t) which would seem to be ideal for your work. Try this: http://www.atnf.csiro.au/research/pulsar/pmsurv/
• HST data is always available for download, once the proprietary period has expired, from the HST archive. You don't care what the data is from, right? Note, though, that this is a 2-dimensional image, so it might have some "fake" compressibility due to redundant information. Radio data does not have this weakness, so I recommend that instead.
• For most astronomy data, you'll need to learn to read FITS format: try this.

Will look for gravity waves and such too (little more direct then the gravity lenseing effect): http://www.ngst.stsci.edu/

http://www.ngst.stsci.edu/

The star Betelgeuse, which is the North-East bright red star in the familiar constellation Orion, is so large that it's atmosphere has been imaged.

Betelgeuse - An outrageously big star imaged by Hubble

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey is using CCDs to map one quarter of the entire sky, in five passbands. Its main camera uses a mosaic of 30 2048x2048 CCDs to cover an area about 2.5 degrees across (although there are gaps between the chips).

Ok, that sounds nice.

There seems to be a Digitized Sky Survey project, which digitizes the Palomar and some other plates. They are scanned from 6.5x6.5 degree plates to 1.7 or 1.0 arc seconds per pixel. That makes about...23400x23400 pixels per plate, which is a lot less than I guessed (the plates are rather grainy after all), only 4.6 times more pixels than with the SDSS camera.

Wow, what a great shot. The Space Telescope Science Institude has their own news item with some _nice_ hi-res versions.

Hats off to the Hubble project. This has certainly been one of the most successful and productive NASA projects of the last decade or so.

Lasers ain't natural. If you find lasers, you find life.

Not so - there are natural lasers; all you need are the right conditions.
Examples from space: ultraviolet lasers, Microwave lasers (masers) and near infrared lasers.

Look at all the Mars stuff happening - Mars in the Media, and the immediately recent Mars opposition and new hubble shots, the killer success of the surveyor mission, the probes heading there right now, the rover mission and others.

NASA should be pimping the hell out of it. The existence of extraterrestrial life, even microbes, is a question of enormous magnitude. It is truly a question of biblical proportions. NASA's work on Mars could perhaps unravel one of the greatest mystery humans face. It will be very interesting to discover what is returned to Earth in the Mars soil samples returning to Earth in 2005. You can check out the strategy paper NASA issued on researching Mars exobiology.

The ultimate mystery!

Look at all the Mars stuff happening - Mars in the Media, and the immediately recent Mars opposition and new hubble shots, the killer success of the surveyor mission, the probes heading there right now, the rover mission and others.

NASA should be pimping the hell out of it. The existence of extraterrestrial life, even microbes, is a question of enormous magnitude. It is truly a question of biblical proportions. NASA's work on Mars could perhaps unravel one of the greatest mystery humans face. It will be very interesting to discover what is returned to Earth in the Mars soil samples returning to Earth in 2005. You can check out the strategy paper NASA issued on researching Mars exobiology.

The ultimate mystery!

OK. I did some search, and it seems like the pointing error is about 10 mas. What is the pixel scale? About 100 mas? I that case, I guess it is quite sufficient, yes.

Just found this on HubbleSite, which is an official Hubble Space Telescope site. <conspiracy theory>Notice it says they don't photograph earth in detail, not that they couldn't, and 'test' is in quotes, as in, "we're just calling them tests".</conspiracy theory> I don't think "they" are watching us, if they are they have way too much time on their hands, but I think someone could present a plausable argument saying otherwise.

"// this is the most hacked, evil, bastardized thing I've ever seen. kjb"

Are you sure there isn't more to show?

Courtesy - Image Google

Courtesy - Image Google

For those who don't know, the Maunder Minimum was a period of unusually low solar output which occurred several hundred years ago and correlated with low global temperatures. Whole carnivals were held in the middle of the Thames river because it froze over hard, Louis XIV had warmer floors installed in Versailles, and the canals froze in Amsterdam.

My understanding from my astrophycist friends is that we're not actually presently in another Maunder Minimum period, but that present sunspot activity seems awfully similar to the activity the sun exhibited immediately before the Maunder Minimum. It also seems similar to activity exhibited by other stars shortly before what are believed to be their reduced activity periods. (One of my close friends is big in hunting down other stars similar to our sun, but there isn't enough information to draw conclusions yet.)

In other words, folks, we might possibly be in for a minor ice-age soon. Also, since solar activity continues to correlate with global temperature, either global warming we are presently observing is caused by the sun, or our use of aerosol cans here is somehow turning up the temperature on the surface of the sun.

Now, please excuse me while I climb into an asbestos suit, and while you're aiming your flamethrowers at me please remember that I'm actually a radical liberal and believe strongly in living in an unpolluted environment, I just want some factual reality involved.

[goes outside to look at Mars in the telescope]

See it on Hubble's website.
See also this cnn.com story about it.
Oh and this slashdot story earlier today where I found the links.

Checkout their massive 300dpi image. I wonder if Mars is really pixelated?


"Press any key to begin."

Anyway, more info and a 2K (!!!) res image here

Everyone always stares at me when I profess the beauty of Lisp, as well as its possibilities. While being the second oldest language still in use (after Fortran), it's still modern with respect to the new applications people are finding for the language. For the curious, here's some other cool Lisp/Scheme projects:

A Common LISP Hypermedia Server

UTexas's archive of classic Lisp AI code (SHRDLU, Eliza, etc.)

SPIKE - Planning/Scheduling software for the Hubble Space Telescope

Babylon - an environment for developing expert systems

Lisp-Stat - statistics package


Also, here's a great directory on more info and resources on Lisp:
Association of Lisp Users

You got it! The link in the story doesn't give show all the images (just the latest HH Neb.). There is a complete image collection here. Enjoy.

Both HST and ground-based "long exposures" are the result of adding shorter numerous shorter exposures. This is necessary because you don't want to fill up your pixels with sky counts, and also because cosmic rays will cause hot spots that you want to eliminate by not including CR-zapped pixels when you add up the short exposures. See the observing log for the Hubble Deep Field; the Texp field gives the individual exposure time in seconds. All of the exposures in a given filter (F300W, F450W, F606W, F814W) were then added to give the "long exposure" image. Calibration data (bias and dark frames) were interespersed with the science exposures.

On a similar note, see the scheduling constraints for the various filters.

We routinely take 1800 second exposures of a field over a span of months or years until we have 8 hours or more of total exposure.

Both HST and ground-based "long exposures" are the result of adding shorter numerous shorter exposures. This is necessary because you don't want to fill up your pixels with sky counts, and also because cosmic rays will cause hot spots that you want to eliminate by not including CR-zapped pixels when you add up the short exposures. See the observing log for the Hubble Deep Field; the Texp field gives the individual exposure time in seconds. All of the exposures in a given filter (F300W, F450W, F606W, F814W) were then added to give the "long exposure" image. Calibration data (bias and dark frames) were interespersed with the science exposures.

On a similar note, see the scheduling constraints for the various filters.

We routinely take 1800 second exposures of a field over a span of months or years until we have 8 hours or more of total exposure.

Yeah, it's complex and the images are raw, but you can get any image or dataset collected that is more than a year old. If you are into image processing, it's great fun.

The HST Data Archive has a manual. The preface propably answers your question:

"The permanent, more capable archive system-the Space Telescope Data Archive and Distribution Service (ST-DADS)-was installed September 1994. Developed by Loral and STScI, ST-DADS stores HST data on its optical jukeboxes, provides quick access to data, and distributes those data in the standard astronomical format FITS (Flexible Image Transport System). ST-DADS is now able to deliver data directly to a user's home computer over the Internet."

They really do love acronyms. (STScI = Space Telescope Science Institute).

To cut it short, the data is on CD-ROM:s in FITS format, and the system is specially designed for this purpose.

The HST Data Archive has a manual. The preface propably answers your question:

"The permanent, more capable archive system-the Space Telescope Data Archive and Distribution Service (ST-DADS)-was installed September 1994. Developed by Loral and STScI, ST-DADS stores HST data on its optical jukeboxes, provides quick access to data, and distributes those data in the standard astronomical format FITS (Flexible Image Transport System). ST-DADS is now able to deliver data directly to a user's home computer over the Internet."

They really do love acronyms. (STScI = Space Telescope Science Institute).

To cut it short, the data is on CD-ROM:s in FITS format, and the system is specially designed for this purpose.

Actually, the real image bank can be found here. It's got a lot of image series neatly lined up. The link in the story only shows the last (Horsehead Nebula) series.

...here are some pics the hubble took.

Here is a link to some other hubble pics!

So PD sez:

"You need to look here to find a whole lot more. "

Ah, but the Hubble Heritage site chooses images based upon beauty and esthetics.

And, they also take requests as to where to point the Hubble.

These pictures also make wonderful desktop images or wallpaper.

You need to look here to find a whole lot more.

here..

Other non-terrestrial auroras can be found:

...at Saturn here and here (Hubble)
...at Neptune (Voyager)

Neptune's aurorae occur near its equator, due to the alignment of that planet's magnetic field... I couldn't find a definite page or photograph of aurorae on Uranus, although I did find an AAS paper that discusses auroral emissions.

--
Scott Robert Ladd
Master of Complexity
Destroyer of Order and Chaos

Other non-terrestrial auroras can be found:

...at Saturn here and here (Hubble)
...at Neptune (Voyager)

Neptune's aurorae occur near its equator, due to the alignment of that planet's magnetic field... I couldn't find a definite page or photograph of aurorae on Uranus, although I did find an AAS paper that discusses auroral emissions.

--
Scott Robert Ladd
Master of Complexity
Destroyer of Order and Chaos

Timothy, timothy, timothy -- do you actually read articles before you publish them? Once again, you've shown an disturbing lack of knowledge when reporting a scientific topic...

The BBC article you referenced is about the discover of an auroral flare -- a phenomena hitherto unseen in Jovia aurorae. Aurorae have, however, been photographed on Jupiter for several years, by Galileo, Hubble, and other devices. Here, for example, is a 1996 article about related observations by Hubble. I spent a whole ten seconds checking my facts on Google; you might want to try it sometime!

I appreciate Slashdot's commitment to science -- but a core principle of science is accurate observation and reporting... and when you publish erroneous stories, it destroys both your reputation and Slashdot's value.

--
Scott Robert Ladd
Master of Complexity
Destroyer of Order and Chaos

There are astronomical institutions which are not degree-granting, but are in the .edu domain.

can be found here:
Blast from the Past: Farthest Supernova Ever Seen Sheds Light on Dark Universe
... and some more information, why this should tell us, that the universe is expanding faster.

As for actually imaging things on the moon, you're correct, even the Hubble does not have the resolution to pick out the Apollo landers. Some actual numbers to back this up:

Angular resolution of a telescope goes roughly as wavelength/diameter. For visible light at 5000 Angstroms, this means the 2.4 m HST can resolve down to about 0.04 arcsecond (= 1x10^-5 degrees), and the 10m Keck, largest telescope on Earth, could get down to 0.01 arcsec in theory, but in reality atmospheric effects limit it to about ten times that. At a distance of 384400 km, these resolutions correspond to 80 m and 20m per pixel, which is not *quite* good enough to make out anything man-made on the surface. The proposed 30m California Extremely Large Telescope could maybe barely do it, but that's probably 30 years off.

It is a young star called Eta Carinae.

Interesting that a dying star and an apparently new star show a similar shockwave pattern....

{searching the web}

There is a better writeup at STSci. They also mention Eta C.

..I like the Artists concept of a black hole.

Its just so.......black!!

:-)

No, there aren't any such photographs currently. There was a photograph taken by the Hubble telescope which was possibly such an object, but it was later announced that they no longer believe this to be a planet.

No, there aren't any such photographs currently. There was a photograph taken by the Hubble telescope which was possibly such an object, but it was later announced that they no longer believe this to be a planet.