Astrophysics

---

AstroMD is a visualization package developed in the Cosmo.Lab framework with the specific object of supporting visualization and analysis of astrophysical three dimensional structures. Astrophysical data, in fact, have peculiarities that make them different from data coming from any other kind of simulation or experiment. AstroMD includes functionality that makes these types of problems easily solved. Furthermore, efficient manipulation and analysis tools, like smoothing of the particle masses on a mesh or calculation of the power spectrum and correlation functions, are parts of the basic functionalities.

AstroMD also has stereographic rendering capabilities, which makes it usable for immersive visualization . This completes and improves its capabilities in the representation of three dimensional data set.

 

http://cosmolab.cineca.it/

 

---

---

The ESO-MIDAS system provides general tools for image processing and data reduction with emphasis on astronomical applications including imaging and special reduction packages for ESO instrumentation at La Silla and the VLT at Paranal. In addition it contains applications packages for stellar and surface photometry, image sharpening and decomposition, statistics and various others.

 

http://www.eso.org/sci/data-processing/software/esomidas/

 

---

---

The Integrated System for Imagers and Spectrometers (ISIS) is a specialized image processing package. It has many standard image processing operations such as contrast stretch, image algebra, filters, and statistical analysis. Isis operates on both classical two-dimensional images as well as three-dimensional cubes collected from imaging spectrometers. The real power of Isis, however, is its unique capabilities for processing data from NASA spacecraft missions such as Voyager, Viking, Galileo, Mars Global Surveyor, and Mars Odyssey.

http://isis.astrogeology.usgs.gov/index.html

---

---

XEphem is a scientific-grade interactive astronomical ephemeris package. XEphem:

• computes heliocentric, geocentric and topocentric information for all objects;
• has built-in support for all planets; the moons of Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Earth; central meridian longitude of Mars and Jupiter; Saturn's rings; and Jupiter's Great Red Spot;
• allows user-defined objects including stars, deepsky objects, asteroids, comets and Earth satellites.
• provides special efficient handling of large catalogs including Tycho, Hipparcos, GSC.
• displays data in configurable tabular formats in conjunction with several interactive graphical views;
• displays a night-at-a-glance 24 hour graphic showing when any selected objects are up;
• displays 3-D stereo Solar System views that are particularly well suited for visualizing comet trajectories;
• quickly finds all close pairs of objects in the sky;
• sorts and prints all catalogs with very flexible criteria for creating custom observing lists;
• creates plots of any pairs of all data fields throughout the program;
• downloads current asteroid and comets ephemerides from Lowell Observatory and Minor Planet Center;
• downloads timely Earth satellite orbital TLE parameters;
• plots true binary system orbits;
• downloads Digitized Sky Survey FITS files from STScI or ESO;
• provides a handy coordinates spreadsheet for converting among equatorial, ecliptic, horizon and galactic frames ;
• displays live SOHO images of the Sun;
• includes a compiler for entering and solving user-written functions using any data fields;
• serves as the control point for GOTO telescopes such as Meade LX200 or other external applications;
• displays FITS files images overlaid with database symbols and other graphical information;
• performs automatic star pattern matching to automatically solve for World Coordinate System on any image;
• performs 1-click 2D Gaussian relative and absolute photometry;
• defines and saves any number of Eyepieces to use in sky maps;
• captures, displays and clips to any number of local horizon profiles;
• stores sets of all Sky View options in history sets for easy playback later;
• prints using high quality Postscript;
• allows you to assign any number of objects as Favorites for special fast access throughout the program, and makes them available even when their original databases are no longer loaded;
• provides an extensible image gallery initialized with over 300 beautiful and informative color images of deep sky objects;
• provides an observing logbook which is automatically filled in with observing circumstances, with searching on most fields;
• displays magnetic deviation for any location.
• create movie loops of any View, NAAG or Plot window.

 

http://www.clearskyinstitute.com/xephem/index.html/

---