The

ESA , owners = , headquarters = Paris, Île-de-France, France , coordinates = , spaceport = Guiana Space Centre , seal = File:ESA emblem seal.png , seal_size = 130px , image = Views in the Main Control Room (120 ...

ESO The European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere, commonly referred to as the European Southern Observatory (ESO), is an intergovernmental research organisation made up of 16 member states for ground-based ast ...

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...

FITS (Flexible Image Transport System) Liberator is a free software program for processing and editing

astronomical Astronomy () is a natural science that studies celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and evolution. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, nebulae, galaxi ...

science data in the FITS format to reproduce images of the

universe The universe is all of space and time and their contents, including planets, stars, galaxies, and all other forms of matter and energy. The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological description of the development of the universe. ...

. Version 3 and later are standalone programs; earlier versions were plugins for Adobe Photoshop. FITS Liberator is

free software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, no ...

released under the BSD-3 license. The engine behind the FITS Liberator is NASA's CFITSIO

library A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vir ...

. FITS has been a standard since 1982 and is recognized by the

International Astronomical Union The International Astronomical Union (IAU; french: link=yes, Union astronomique internationale, UAI) is a nongovernmental organisation with the objective of advancing astronomy in all aspects, including promoting astronomical research, outreac ...

(IAU). While not limited solely to image data, archives in the FITS file format include images of stars, nebulae and galaxies produced by space-based and ground-based

telescope A telescope is a device used to observe distant objects by their emission, absorption, or reflection of electromagnetic radiation. Originally meaning only an optical instrument using lenses, curved mirrors, or a combination of both to observ ...

s from around the world. Although the first version of the software was a tool used mainly by professional

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. They observe astronomical objects such as stars, planets, moons, comets and galaxies – in either ...

s, efforts have been made to bring high quality astronomical images to the homes of

amateur astronomers Amateur astronomy is a hobby where participants enjoy observing or imaging celestial objects in the sky using the unaided eye, binoculars, or telescopes. Even though scientific research may not be their primary goal, some amateur astronomer ...

, educators and students. The FITS Liberator has become the industry standard for professional imaging scientists at the European Space Agency (ESA), the European Southern Observatory (ESO), and NASA. It uses images from the

Hubble Space Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope (often referred to as HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most vers ...

(HST) and the

Very Large Telescope The Very Large Telescope (VLT) is a telescope facility operated by the European Southern Observatory on Cerro Paranal in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile. It consists of four individual telescopes, each with a primary mirror 8.2 m acro ...

(VLT), among others, to craft beautiful colour astronomical images. The first and second versions of the FITS Liberator were released in July 2004 and August 2005 respectively, the version, v3.0.1, was released in February 2012.

Version 1

Version 1 of the ESA/ESO/NASA Photoshop FITS Liberator was completed in July 2004 by imaging scientists at the European Space Agency (ESA), the European Southern Observatory (ESO), and

. Version 1 allowed all types of FITS images to be opened and also some limited interaction with the images.

Version 2

# The preview window # Histogram # Tools # Statistics # Advanced tools for scaling and stretch The basic workflow is to open a FITS image, study it in the Preview window, adjust the black-and-white levels (6) to give a reasonable contrast and then set the input range for the scaling of the image by clicking the Auto Scaling Button (7). Now, different values of the Scaled Peak level can be tested to scale the image to better fit with one of the possible Stretch functions (8). Version 2 of the ESA/ESO/NASA Photoshop FITS Liberator image processing software made it both easier and faster to create colour images from raw observations. Updates included: * FITS images with up to 4 billion grey scales can be processed (32 bit support). * FITS images with up to 500 million pixels or more can be processed (100 times larger than standard images from a digital camera). * Re-designed workflow and user interface. The plug-in remembers previous settings. * New options for advanced scaling and stretching. An entire section of v2.0 was dedicated to metadata input and the user also had access to a text version of the original FITS header. With the advent of the FITS Liberator v2.0, it became possible for people at home to create spectacular pictures like the iconic Hubble image ''

Pillars of Creation ''Pillars of Creation'' is a photograph taken by the Hubble Space Telescope of elephant trunks of interstellar gas and dust in the Eagle Nebula, in the Serpens constellation, some from Earth. These elephant trunks had been discovered by Jo ...

'' in a matter of minutes. An updated version of the software containing new scaling and stretching tools is available that allows better manipulation of astronomical images. An update in v2.1 is the ability for users to embed descriptive information about the image and what it shows directly within the final image. Based on a new standard for

Astronomy Visualization Metadata Astronomy Visualization Metadata (AVM) is a standard for tagging digital astronomical images stored in formats such as JPEG, GIF, PNG and TIFF. The AVM standard extends the concept of Extensible Metadata Platform (XMP) headers to include useful ...

(AVM), this information is stored in the standard manner comparable to that used by digital cameras to record exposure information. The ESA/ESO/NASA WFPC2 Mosaicator: This new add-on tool works on Hubble

WFPC2 The Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) is a camera formerly installed on the Hubble Space Telescope. The camera was built by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and is roughly the size of a baby grand piano. It was installed by servicing missio ...

images. It will generate a single WFPC2 mosaic file from one WFPC2 file containing four CCD images in individual planes. The ESA/ESO/NASA FITS Concatenator: This Adobe Photoshop script will combine the metadata from two or more individual exposures after the FITS Liberation process.

Version 3

Version 3.0 of the FITS Liberator include the following new features: * FITS Liberator is a stand-alone application, no longer requiring Adobe Photoshop. * Processing medium-sized images is up to 35% faster, thanks to significantly improved memory management. * Processing large images are also faster thanks to delayed application of stretch functions. * FITS Liberator saves

TIFF Tag Image File Format, abbreviated TIFF or TIF, is an image file format for storing raster graphics images, popular among graphic artists, the publishing industry, and photographers. TIFF is widely supported by scanning, faxing, word process ...

files that open in almost any image processing software.

Version 4

Version 4.0 of the FITS Liberator was released on 4 March 2021, include the new features: * 64 bit operating systems are now supported. * MacOSX, Windows and Linux support. * Command Line Interface available for batch processing of FITS files. * Full support for big images (even greater than available memory) * Dark Mode. * Full screen.

The Team

The team that produced FITS Liberator 1.0 to 3.0.1 consists of: Project Executive: Lars Lindberg Christensen Technical Project Manager: Lars Holm Nielsen Developers: Kaspar K. Nielsen & Teis Johansen Scientific, technical support and testing: Robert Hurt & David de Martin The team that produced FITS Liberator 4 consist of: Developers: David Zambrano Lizarazo & Juan Fajardo Barrero Scientific, technical support and testing: Robert Hurt GUI & Logo Design: David Zambrano Lizarazo Project Executive: Lars Lindberg Christensen Technical Project Manager: Javier Enciso

How to use it

For experienced users there is a Quick Start Guide available at the FITS Liberator website. For new users a Full User Guide for the FITS Liberator 3, can be obtained from the European homepage of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

References

{{Reflist

External links

The ESA/ESO/NASA FITS Liberator v3.0.1
spacetelescope.org
The FITS Liberator 4 page at NOIRLabThe FITS Liberator 4 page at BitPointer
Free graphics software Software using the BSD license