Subject: Viewing DSS Fits Files

From: Gordon <dgb at doplar.wa.astro.gov.au>
Date: Mon, 04 May 1998 10:32:47 +0800

The other day I asked about viewers for fits files to help me with a
photographic project for my astronomical club.  I was given the net
address to download FITsview 2.0.  

The good news is that I now have this program and it works well with the
sample images that came with it.  However, when I try to view fits files
downloaded fromm DSS I get an error message saying that I have performed
an illegal function.  I have tried on different days downloading DSS
images and seeing if they will be accepted by the program.  But no
luck.  If it is of any use my computer has Windows 95 and runs a late
version of Netscape.  

Your help is once again needed.

Gordon

(What I have seen so far, I think Fitsviewer is a fantastic research
tool)

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From: Bill Cotton <bcotton at nrao.edu>
Date: Mon, 4 May 1998 19:55:23 -0400 (EDT)

> (What I have seen so far, I think Fitsviewer is a fantastic research
Gordon,
   Could you be a bit more specific about your source of dss images.
I can't reproduce your problem using images from the stsci server.
Also, could you please use an E-Mail account with a proper host name?
When I try to send you a message directly it bounces complaining of
"Unknown host".

-Bill Cotton

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From: Gordon <dgb at doplar.wa.astro.gov.au>
Date: Wed, 06 May 1998 10:49:26 +0800

> When I try to send you a message directly it bounces complaining of

Bill thanks for your interest.  I down load my DSS images from the
Skyview site (skyview.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/skybasic.pl).  As to my
e-mail address I have added "astro" to my address to foil spammers. I
will rectify this situation in future postings.
My e-mail address is dgb at doplar.wa.gov.au.  

Cheers 
Gordon

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From: Tom McGlynn <tam at silk.gsfc.nasa.gov>
Date: Wed, 06 May 1998 10:35:25 -0400

Since Gordon mentioned that he got his images from
SkyView (presumably http://skyview.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/skvbasic.pl 
i.e., skvbasic not skybasic) I downloaded FITSview to my Windows/NT
machine to check things out.  I had no difficulty reading
either the uncompressed or compressed images from SkyView into
FITSview.

FITSview did seem to be a very nice and powerful tool
for displaying FITS image data and I anticipate that I will
be using it now that I've downloaded it onto my PC.

		Tom McGlynn
		SkyView PI

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From: ajw01 at uow.edu.au (Andrew John Walker)
Date: 10 May 98 23:39:07 GMT

Peter Teuben <teuben at astro.umd.edu> writes:

>Tom McGlynn wrote:

>I must have been doing something very basic wrong. I found FITSview
>a bit annoying (on unix, never tried the win* versions):
>It's most basic operation, changing the colortable interactively, was done in
>another widget using sliders or so. I tried moving the mouse
>in the window, with and without pressing down a variety of
>keyboard buttons, and nothing appeared to change contrast/colors etc.
>Perhaps I'm too spoiled by that and the client-server nature of saoimage
>and SAOtng. Are there functional differences between the unix
>and win* versions of FITSview. I noted that month after month it
>is the top download from the NRAO ftp archive. I must be missing
>something (apart from the blue screen of death of course)

>Btw, saoimage is also pretty nice with DSS images. Displaying full
>WCS info etc.

	The last time I used Fitsview you had to reload the image for
the minimum and maximum pixel range to work. However brightness and contrast
should work immediately.
--
* Andrew Walker         *
* Department Of Physics * e-mail -- ajw01 at uow.edu.au
* Wollongong University *
* Australia		*

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From: Peter Teuben <teuben at astro.umd.edu>
Date: Sat, 09 May 1998 00:40:38 -0400

- peter

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From: Bill Cotton <bcotton at nrao.edu>
Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 08:36:17 -0400 (EDT)

> the minimum and maximum pixel range to work. However brightness and contrast
   Let me point out that the FITSview family is primarily targeted at
the general public for which the major consideration is simplicity and
obvious controls - obscure keyboard controls of things like brightness
and contrast are explicitly avoided.  Sliders are obvious - keys are
not in the postliterate era.  FITSview is not intended as a competitor
to SAOimage.  I hope that the FITSview family is useful to
professional astronomers but they are not its primary market.
   The general public supports us through their taxes and the very
least we can do is share our pretty pictures with them.  FITSview is
aimed at people who want to go beyond the gif or jpeg renditions of
images from which most the astronomy has been removed.  We've made the
sky accessable on the internet but we also have to provide the tools
so that people can take advantage of this.

   The most recent version of all of the FITSviewers, by default, looks
at the image to decide the appropriate range of pixel values to
display based on the sky and noise levels.  It doesn't always get it
right but this really cuts down on the reloads. 
   All of the FITSviewers understand DSS and IRAF CD-matrix
coordinates as well as WCS and will give a WCS display of the
coordinates.
   The differences among the Windows, Unix and Apple versions are
relatively minor.  The Windows version has a print button, the others
do not; the Windows version has a toolbar, the others do not and, of
course, the Windows help system is vastly superior to anything
(including html) on its competitors.  However, the real reason that
the Windows version of FITSview dominates the ftp fetches is that
Windows dominates the computing world; most computer users have never
even heard of Unix.

-Bill Cotton