Jayanne English's Homepage

Spruce Woods 2006: Astronomy Imagemaking Workshop

Welcome to the site for the astronomy imagemaking workshop to be held between 1:00 to 4:00 pm on Saturday Sept 2, 2006. It will begin with 1 practical talk. Jayanne English (University of Manitoba) will show colour techniques for producing striking astronomy images. We will then finish up with a workshop where you actually make an image. Please bring your laptop. If you don't mind, please invite people who don't have laptops to create with you during the workshop component. Below are items you will need for this component.

• Motivation for the Workshop: The abstract.
  From Cosmos to Canvas:
  Bold colour images from telescopes act as extraordinary ambassadors for astronomers because they pique the public's curiosity. Unfortunately attempts by scientists to represent their discoveries can tend to all but drown out the conventions of visual literacy. This can dilute the impact of an image. This workshop includes a talk outlining how artistic techniques -- such as colour contrast and composition -- can be used to produce a more engaging image with greater clarity for the non-expert public. It also includes a hands-on image-making exercise which will help you to learn how to make outstanding, striking electronic images to support your astronomy activities in accurate, compelling ways. Bring your laptop and learn techniques of the professionals. (Information about want you should load your laptop with will be available at http://www.physics.umanitoba.ca/~english/sprucewoods2006)
  
  
• Needed for the Workshop Component:
  • Black and White Jpegs.
    Please download all of the files in this directory onto your laptop. We will manipulate them into colour images using GIMP or PhotoShop during the workshop.
  • GIMP
    If you do not have an image manipulation package on your computer e.g. PhotoShop), the Gnu Image Manipulation Package is free, easy to install, and works on Linux as well as Microsoft.

• Needed for Stretching B+W images:
  • Karma
    This astronomy visualization package accepts FITS files as input, allows very fine adjustments (using KVIS) and outputs results as ppm or postscript files. These outputs can be loaded into manipulation packages like GIMP and PhotoShop.
  • FITS Liberator
    If you are using PhotoShop, then you can import your fits file into the software using FITS Liberator.
• Selected Articles:
  • Image-Processing Techniques for the Creation of Presentation-Quality Astronomical Images. The bible on how to make astronomy images by Travis Rector, Zoltan Levay, Lisa Frattare, Jayanne English and Kirk Pu'uohau Pummill
  • Summary of Jayanne's GIMP tutorial on how to construct an image.
  • Behind the Pictures by the folk at Space Telescope Science Institute. Simplistic, it uses only 3 colours while most of the images are constructed out of more colours. This site also explains the wacky "chevron" shape in most of the HST images.
• A Selection of Image Websites:
  • Hubble Heritage Project. Classic Hubble Telescope images produced monthly.
  • Anglo-Australian Observatory. David Malin uses photographic film and filters to capture what the human eye WOULD see, if the human eye were as sensitive to light as our astronomy detectors.
  • International/Canadian Galactic Plane Survey. Images produced using mainly radio telescope data from the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory.
  • Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope. Image of the month.
  • Gemini Telescope Images.

Contact Information