Making Press Release Astronomical Images

NVO Compliant

Lisa M. FrattareSpace Telescope Science Institute

Communicating Astronomy with the PublicJune 14 - 17, 2005ESO – Garching

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NVO

National Virtual ObservatoryNational Virtual Observatory: A U.S. effort to systematically organize and make available astronomical data, images, and other content so that it can be retrieved and used by many users.

Similar to VO (European effort)

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Simple Image Access (SIA) Protocol

Standards to Meet the Compliance RequirementsStandards to Meet the Compliance Requirements

This is important for those who manufacture astronomical images from astronomical data (observatory, amateurs, image processors)

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Image Compliance with NVO/VO

NVO/VO compliance: press release images need World Coordinate System

(WCS)

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Which images to include

- No artwork- No multi-image layout- No moving targets (SS objects)

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A. Compare two images:1) Reference image – FITS data(WCS)2) Target image – press release TIFF

B. Prepping the images:1) Filter Selection2) Combining pairs of like-filters

Software to Measure WCS

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FITS file prepping

Recommend retrieving strongest filter (i.e. HST: broadband R, or Halpha)

Combine pairs of data to remove cosmic rays (still retain the WCS)

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CR

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CR

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CR-Combined

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TIF file prepping

Recommend Splitting Channels(if necessary)

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Split Channels narrowband

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Split Channels narrowband

Wcs.

wcs.computewcs

Fit

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Transformation

Transformation Coefficients

Voila!WCS

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Requirements, Future Plans & Credits - Python-based GUI to run on all platforms - Requires Python Imaging Library (PIL) and mathplotlib - Testing Summer 2005 on STScI OPO images database - Image Comparison for Calculated WCS - Anticipated Release Date – 2006

Personnel (at STScI)- Frank Summers – project manager, database and web service development- Lisa Frattare – tool set development- Zolt Levay – HST PR procedure development- Jonathan Eisenhamer – web service deployment- Phil Hodge – programming- Kaushala Bandara (U. Toronto) – intern processing of HST PR archive images- Carol Christian – NVO EPO coordinator