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In observational astronomy an On-The-Fly Calibration (OTFC) system calibrates data when a user's request for the data is processed so that users can obtain data that are calibrated with up-to-date calibration files, parameters, and software.
Observational astronomy is a division of astronomy that is concerned with recording data about the observable universe, in contrast with theoretical astronomy, which is mainly concerned with calculating the measurable implications of physical models. It is the practice and study of observing celestial objects with the use of telescopes and other astronomical instruments.
The OTFC processing system was developed at the Canadian Astronomy Data Centre (CADC) and the Space Telescope European Coordinating Facility (ST-ECF) and is implemented at both sites and at Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI). The OTFC system currently provides data calibration for the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) and Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS). In the future, the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and possibly the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) will be supported.
The Space Telescope – European Coordinating Facility (ST-ECF) was an institution which provided a number of support and service functions primarily for European observers of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope (HST). It was established in 1984 by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Southern Observatory (ESO), and was located at the ESO headquarters in Garching bei München, Germany. The ST-ECF ceased operations on 31 December 2010.
The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) is the science operations center for the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). STScI is located on the Johns Hopkins University Homewood Campus in Baltimore, Maryland and was established in 1981 as a community-based science center that is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA). In addition to performing continuing science operations of HST and preparing for scientific exploration with JWST, STScI manages and operates the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST), the Data Management Center for the Kepler mission and a number of other activities benefiting from its expertise in and infrastructure for supporting the operations of space-based astronomical observatories. Most of the funding for STScI activities comes from contracts with NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center but there are smaller activities funded by NASA's Ames Research Center, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the European Space Agency (ESA). The staff at STScI consists of scientists, software engineers, data management and telescope operations personnel, education and public outreach experts, and administrative and business support personnel. There are approximately 100 Ph.D. scientists working at STScI, 15 of which are ESA staff who are on assignment to the HST project. The total STScI staff consists of about 450 people.
The Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) is a camera formerly installed on the Hubble Space Telescope. The camera was built by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and is roughly the size of a baby grand piano. It was installed by servicing mission 1 (STS-61) in 1993, replacing the telescope's original Wide Field and Planetary Camera (WF/PC). WFPC2 was used to image the Hubble Deep Field in 1995, the Hourglass Nebula and Egg Nebula in 1996, and the Hubble Deep Field South in 1998. During STS-125, WFPC2 was removed and replaced with the Wide Field Camera 3 as part of the mission's first spacewalk on May 14, 2009. After returning to Earth, the camera was displayed briefly at the National Air and Space Museum and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory before returning to its final home at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum.
The main goals behind the implementation of the OTFC system are to take advantage of better calibration files and the much smaller storage area required if only raw files are kept in the archives. The system can also offer more calibration steps than were available when the data was first released and can implement improved pipeline software.
Currently, for example, HST data are calibrated as they are received at the STScI. Raw and calibrated data are stored in the HST archive (DADS). Frequently, users must recalibrate the data at their home sites to take advantage of better calibration files or software. A large fraction (over 90%) of the calibrated data in the HST archive could be improved by recalibration, although the improvements are not always significant. In the past, instruments that undergo evolution of calibration files or calibration software often required users to carry out their own recalibrations at their home sites. With OTFC, the HST data archives carry out the recalibration.
Amateur astronomy is a hobby where participants enjoy observing or imaging celestial objects in the sky using the unaided eye, binoculars, or telescopes. Even though scientific research may not be their primary goal, some amateur astronomers make contributions in doing citizen science, such as by monitoring variable stars, double stars sunspots, or occultations of stars by the Moon or asteroids, or by discovering transient astronomical events, such as comets, galactic novae or supernovae in other galaxies.
The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most versatile and is well known as both a vital research tool and a public relations boon for astronomy. The HST is named after astronomer Edwin Hubble and is one of NASA's Great Observatories, along with the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, the Chandra X-ray Observatory, and the Spitzer Space Telescope.
The Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) is a third-generation axial instrument aboard the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The initial design and scientific capabilities of ACS were defined by a team based at Johns Hopkins University. ACS was assembled and tested extensively at Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. and the Goddard Space Flight Center and underwent a final flight-ready verification at the Kennedy Space Center before integration in the cargo bay of the Columbia orbiter. It was launched on March 1, 2002 as part of Servicing Mission 3B (STS-109) and installed in HST on March 7, replacing the Faint Object Camera (FOC), the last original instrument. ACS cost US$86 million at that time.
The Digitized Sky Survey (DSS) is a digitized version of several photographic astronomical surveys of the night sky, produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute between 1983 and 2006.
A camera raw image file contains minimally processed data from the image sensor of either a digital camera, a motion picture film scanner, or other image scanner. Raw files are named so because they are not yet processed and therefore are not ready to be printed or edited with a bitmap graphics editor. Normally, the image is processed by a raw converter in a wide-gamut internal color space where precise adjustments can be made before conversion to a "positive" file format such as TIFF or JPEG for storage, printing, or further manipulation. This often encodes the image in a device-dependent color space. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of raw formats in use by different models of digital equipment.
The ESA/ESO/NASA FITS Liberator is a free software program for processing and editing astronomical science data in the FITS format to reproduce images of the universe. Version 3 and later are standalone programs; earlier versions were plugins for Adobe Photoshop. FITS Liberator is free software released under the BSD-3 license. The engine behind the FITS Liberator is NASA's CFITSIO library.
POA CALFOS is the improved Post Operational Archive version of the Faint Object Spectrograph (FOS) calibration pipeline, an earlier instrument aboard the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). STScI made an improved version of the FOS calibration pipeline called POA_CALFOS. POA CALFOS replaces CALFOS, which performed the routine calibration of FOS data in the standard IRAF/STSDAS FOS calibration pipeline. The current version corrects for image motion problems that have led to significant wavelength scale uncertainties in the FOS data archive. The improvements in the calibration enhance the scientific value of the data in the FOS archive, making it a more homogeneous and reliable resource.
The Space Telescope Science Data Analysis System (STSDAS) is an IRAF-based suite of astronomical software for reducing and analyzing astronomical data. It contains general purpose tools and packages for processing data from the Hubble Space Telescope. STSDAS is produced by Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI). The STSDAS software is in the public domain and the source code is available.
An association (astronomy) is a combined or co-added group of astronomical exposures from which cosmic rays have been removed. WFPC2 associations constitute one type of association and are tools in the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) archive for using data from the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2). Associations were introduced in the HST archive at the beginning of 1998. Since then, astronomers have been able to retrieve on-the-fly re-calibrated co-added WFPC2 images that have already been cleaned of cosmic rays from the Space Telescope European Coordinating Facility (ST-ECF), the Canadian Astronomy Data Centre (CADC) and Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) archives.
Drizzle is a digital image processing method for the linear reconstruction of undersampled images. It is normally used for the combination of astronomical images and was originally developed for the Hubble Deep Field observations made by the Hubble Space Telescope. The algorithm, known as variable-pixel linear reconstruction, or informally as "Drizzle", preserves photometry and resolution, can weight input images according to the statistical significance of each pixel, and removes the effects of geometric distortion on both image shape and photometry. In addition, it is possible to use drizzling to combine dithered images in the presence of cosmic rays.
Linux color management has the same goal as the color management systems (CMS) for other operating systems: to achieve the best possible color reproduction throughout an imaging workflow from its source, through imaging software, and finally onto an output medium. In particular, color management attempts to enable color consistency across media and throughout a color-managed workflow.
IT8 is a set of American National Standards Institute (ANSI) standards for color communications and control specifications. Formerly governed by the IT8 Committee, IT8 activities were merged with those of the Committee for Graphics Arts Technologies Standards in 1994.
Sky-Map.org is a wiki and interactive sky map that covers more than half a billion celestial objects. Users can view the whole star sky at once and zoom in to view areas in greater detail. WikiSky includes many stars, galaxies, constellations, and planets, but it is still in development. Users can also edit information about different stars by writing articles, adding Internet links, uploading images, or create a special interest group for a specific task. The website, although still available for users to visit, has not shown much activity since 2010.
The Advanced Technology Large-Aperture Space Telescope (ATLAST) is an 8– to 16.8–meter UV-optical-NIR space telescope proposed by the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), the science operations center for the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). If launched, ATLAST would be a replacement and successor for the HST, with the ability to obtain spectroscopic and imaging observations of astronomical objects in the ultraviolet, optical, and infrared wavelengths, but with substantially better resolution than either HST or the planned James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Like JWST, ATLAST would be launched to the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange point.
SilverFast is the name of a family of software for image scanning and processing, including photos, documents and slides, developed by LaserSoft Imaging.
Marc Postman is an American astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. His research interests include observational studies of the formation and evolution of galaxies and large scale structure in the universe. His work focuses on determining, observationally, the relationships between galaxy-scale phenomena and the surrounding large-scale environment and matter distribution.
Rodger Evans Doxsey was an American physicist and astronomer who made major contributions to the scientific and operational success of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (HST). He joined the HST Project at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1981, and was head of the Hubble Missions Office at his death.
Astropy is a collection of software packages written in the Python programming language and designed for use in astronomy. The software is a single, free, core package for astronomical utilities due to the increasingly widespread usage of Python by astronomers, and to foster interoperability between various extant Python astronomy packages. Astropy is included in several large Python distributions; it is part of package managers for Linux and macOS, the Anaconda Python Distribution, Enthought Canopy and Ureka.