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Software and Tips for Astrophotography?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the star-gazing dept.

Neotrantor asks: "I'm a college student in an advanced astronomy class and i need to find out how nasa compiles all their little pictures into those big pretty ones like the hubble deep field. does anyone know what software they use or where i could find it. furthermore, is it an operation that any kind of workstation (sparc, alpha, x86, g4) when left on and trashing for a while, could get the job done?" As I understand it, Picture Window (and the Professional version) have become valued tools in the amateur astrophotography world, what other pieces of software would aspiring Astrophotographers find useful in their toolkits? What other tips and trickscan you use to produce stunning visuals of the sky?

11 of 18 comments (clear)

  1. IRAF by RCO · · Score: 3, Informative

    We always used IRAF for analyzing the images that we had. It would allow you to put different filters etc. on the images, and overlay them but I couldn't tell you what it is capable of at this point. IRAF runs under various UNIX flavours, but I don't think there is a version for windows at this point. You can look at this site for more information;
    http://iraf.noao.edu/iraf-homepage.h tml

    later

    --
    'And all the monkeys aren't in the zoo Every day you meet quite a few...'
  2. An Example Is Always Helpful... by routerwhore · · Score: 2, Informative

    Under the "Full WFPC2 Mosaic" Heading

  3. Astro software sites: by mockojumbie · · Score: 3, Informative

    NASA's main software page:
    http://asds.stsci.edu/packages.html

    QCUIAG has links to some excellent software, some free, some not:
    http://www.qcuiag.co.uk
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/QCUIAG

    A new method used by STSI and others:
    http://www.pixon.com/brochure.html

    A HUGE collection of links:
    http://www.r-clarke.org.uk/astrosoft1.htm

    My own astro pages 8^)
    http://rjs.org/astro

    --
    Sigs are for propeller heads.
  4. IDL by teridon · · Score: 4, Informative
    I'm not an astronomer, but I sit near some! :)

    AFAICT, serious image manipulation/analyzation is done with IDL. Check out The IDL Astronomy User's Library.

    --
    I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing. -- Thomas Jefferson
  5. GIMP Reads FITS by lal · · Score: 2

    I don't know what NASA uses to compile those images, but I do know that the GIMP can read and write FITS, the standard format for astronomical images. Many of the Hubble images, in FITS format, are available from the links listed in the other posts.

    For amateur astrophotography, some of which rivals the NASA shots, much of the image processing is done with Photoshop. Most of the tools used to process those images are also available in the GIMP.

  6. Hubble deep field is a single image by PD · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The deep field is a single image, it was not compiled from smaller ones.

    The stealth bomber shape of the picture is the actual shape of the CCD that took the photos. That chip was replaced in the last servicing mission, so they'll not be batwing shaped in the future.

    --
    If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
    1. Re:Hubble deep field is a single image by spinkham · · Score: 3, Informative

      Actually, it is the output of 4 different ccds which take pictures of overlapping areas that are stitched togeather, often by hand for nicer pictures they put out. There was an article on the cameras and image processing (focusing on color but also covering this) in a recent sky&telescope, and there's also good information here: http://hubblesite.org/sci.d.tech/behind_the_pictur es/wacky_shape/index.shtml

      --
      Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.
  7. PANORAMA from Sweetcode by torpor · · Score: 2

    Sweetcode has an entry for some *fantastic* tools, one of which is the Panorama Tools set available here:

    http://sweetcode.org/archive/2002-06.html

    Looks like it might do the job ...

    --
    ; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
  8. This was covered back in April by HughsOnFirst · · Score: 2

    What you probably want to do is combine lots of images one on top of another to increase the signal to noise ratio.
    I doubt that your problem is that the field of view is too narrow. The reason people use bigger telescopes is to get a wider aperture not a longer focal length.

    A recent Slashdot story has a lot of links to information you are looking for.

  9. IRAF and gimp by xiox · · Score: 2

    I'm an X-ray astronomer. Optical astronomers often use IRAF to create the images, but other software like GAIA can be used. SAO's ds9 and saoimage can be used to view the data. Professional astronomers normally use the FITS format to store observational astronomical data.

    I personally (after using CIAO to make the basic images from my X-ray data) combine them using Gimp (it reads FITS files) and then use it to manipulate the colours.

    Sorry for the lack of links. Google will find most of those.

  10. Re:Image Stitching... What do people use? by iangoldby · · Score: 2

    I'd second the use of panotools for stitching images together (website currently down). I couldn't immediately get it to work on Linux, but had it running on Windows without problems.

    It does all sorts of lens corrections, as well as full translation/rotation and transforms between different projections, so you can get the alignment pretty accurate. It also has an 'almost perfect' sinc function interpolator.