The AIP for Windows Digital Image Archive
This CD-ROM contains over 600 megabytes in some two dozen directories containing hundreds of CCD camera images. You will also find a small group of digitized astrophotos. Even if you do not own a CCD camera, a spacecraft, or a digital film scanner, we trust that you will enjoy learning to work with digital images.
The collection on this CD-ROM includes:
Raw deep-sky and planetary images, complete with calibration frames, taken with a variety of CCD cameras by some of today's most accomplished amateur astronomers, to allow the user to experiment with image calibration, stacking, enhancement an 212w2214c d measurement,
Sets of color-filtered image sets (both RGB and CMY) of deep sky objects to help the user "get his feet wet" with color CCD imaging,
Photometric sequences of variables stars,
Spectra of emission nebulae, stars of various stellar classes and Wolf-Rayet stars,
Supernova discovery images,
And much more...
Most image directories contain an ASCII text file called "About_These_Images.txt" which provides information about the images it contains. In addition, files stored in FITS format have information contained in their headers, which can be displayed using the View | FITS Header menu item in AIP for Windows.
To help you browse the CD-ROM, here are brief descriptions of each directory:
Images - unprocessed images from a number of sources to give you the opportunity to practice your processing techniques. We are grateful to the noted astrophotographers who have provided their raw images so that you can see what these master imagers start with when they begin processing their beautiful astrophotos:
Adriana Sherman: Images taken with an ST-10XME CCD camera from the Lake Atitlán, observatory of Guatemalan amateur astronomer Adriana Sherman. These images include a variety of objects, some imaged using a hydrogen-alpha filter. Be sure to check out her image of Comet Machholz.
Brian Manning: Brian Manning was finding asteroids and doing photographic astrometry years before amateurs had CCDs. Can you find the asteroids in his images? (Hint: Blink image pairs to locate them, and then use the Lowell Observatory asteroid ephemeris for identification.)
David Haworth: These images were taken at the 2004 Oregon Star Party by Oregon amateur astronomer Dave Haworth using a Nikon D70 digital SLR camera.
Don Parker: An opportunity to examine and learn planetary imaging from images by the master of planetary images, Don Parker.
Jim Burnell: Images taken with Starlight Xpress HX916 and SXV-H9 cameras, including hydrogen-alpha filtered images, color image stacks, and raw data for practicing image stacking.
Jim Misti: Images of M8 and NGC2403 taken with a Santa Barbara STL11000 camera mounted on a 32-inch Ritchey-Chretien telescope installed in a remote observatory in Arizona. These images are calibrated raw images that have not been processed in any way.
Neil McMickle: Neil McMickle has been beta-testing AIP for Windows since the day it first existed. In this directory, you will find Neil's favorite raw images.
Rob Gendler: A 5-hour exposure taken with a Santa Barbara ST10XME camera through a 12.5-inch Ritchey-Chretien telescope from his driveway in suburban New Haven CT by one of the nation's most noted astrophotographers. This image is a calibrated raw image that has not been processed in any way.
Spectra: These sample objective prism spectra were taken with modest equipment. Try these with AIP for Window's spectroscopy tool. By the way, be sure to look at the weird spectrum of HD192163, the Wolf-Rayet star in the middle of the Crescent Nebula, NGC 6888.
Sullivan: Learn photometry or make a CCD movie from Phil Sullivan's beautiful eclipse sequence of the star Z Draconis.
Thierry Legault: These represent some of the finest lunar images made with a small telescope, by the French observer Thierry Legault. Enjoy the images and experiment with unsharp masking, deconvolution, and wavelet enhancements.
Tim Puckett: One of the all-time most successful supernova hunters, Tim Puckett has contributed this amazing directory. It contains before-and after images of real supernova discoveries that Tim has made.
Tony Hallas: An image of NGC2903 acquired with a Santa Barbara ST10XME camera by one of the nation's most noted astrophotographers. This image is a calibrated raw image that has not been processed in any way.
Note: While the images included are wonderful examples of modern digital imaging, some of them are quite large. If you are processing them with an older computer, you can expect loading, viewing and enhancing them to be slow.
Tutorial - Sample images to go along with the tutorials included in The Handbook of Astronomical Image Processing.
Program Files - This directory contains the executable files for Astronomical Image Processing for Windows - Version 2. It is installed automatically when you insert the CDROM in the drive, or by running the setup.exe file in the root directory. You should have no need to access the contents of this directory.
System32 - This directory contains the system files to support the installation of AIP4Win V2. You should have no need to access the contents of this directory.
To fit as many images as possible on this CDROM, some files have been zipped (compressed). Before they can be loaded into AIP4Win they must be extracted to a directory on your hard drive. They can be unzipped (decompressed) using the WinZip or PKZip programs that are available via the Internet. For a current URL of the vendors of these programs the user is urged to check the AIP for Windows page on the Willmann-Bell web site at:
|
