Montage is a
software tool
A programming tool or software development tool is a computer program that is used to software development, develop another computer program, usually by helping the developer manage computer files. For example, a programmer may use a tool called ...
kit used in
astrophotography
Astrophotography, also known as astronomical imaging, is the photography or imaging of astronomical objects, celestial events, or areas of the night sky. The first photograph of an astronomical object (the Moon) was taken in 1839, but it was no ...
to assemble
astronomical
Astronomy is a natural science that studies celestial objects and the phenomena that occur in the cosmos. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and their overall evolution. Objects of interest include ...
images in
Flexible Image Transport System (FITS) format into
composite images, called
mosaics
A mosaic () is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/Mortar (masonry), mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and ...
, that preserve the calibration and positional fidelity of the original input images.
It won a NASA Space Act Award in 2006.
Montage was developed to support scientific research. It enables astronomers to create images of regions of the sky that are too large to be produced by
astronomical cameras. It also creates composite images of a region of the sky that has been measured with different
wavelengths
In physics and mathematics, wavelength or spatial period of a wave or periodic function is the distance over which the wave's shape repeats.
In other words, it is the distance between consecutive corresponding points of the same '' phase'' on ...
and with different instruments; the composite appears as if the area was measured with the same instrument on the same telescope. There is also associated software developed by the Montage user community including
Bash and
C shell
The C shell (csh or the improved version, tcsh) is a Unix shell created by Bill Joy while he was a graduate student at University of California, Berkeley in the late 1970s. It has been widely distributed, beginning with the 2BSD release of the ...
scripts to make mosaics, and the montage-wrapper
Python
Python may refer to:
Snakes
* Pythonidae, a family of nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia
** ''Python'' (genus), a genus of Pythonidae found in Africa and Asia
* Python (mythology), a mythical serpent
Computing
* Python (prog ...
application programming interface, a part of the
Astropy
Astropy is a collection of software packages written in the Python programming language and designed for use in astronomy.
The software is a single, free, core package for astronomical utilities due to the increasingly widespread usage of Python ...
project.
Montage uses a
BSD 3-Clause License, which permits unlimited redistribution of the Montage code for any purpose as long as its copyright notices and the license's disclaimers of warranty are included.
See also
*
Afocal photography
Afocal photography, also called afocal imaging or afocal projection is a method of photography where the camera with its lens attached is mounted over the eyepiece of another image forming system such as an optical telescope or optical microscope, ...
*
Outline of photography
*
Image editing
Image editing encompasses the processes of altering images, whether they are Digital photography, digital photographs, traditional Photographic processing, photo-chemical photographs, or illustrations. Traditional analog image editing is known ...
References
External links
* {{Official, montage.ipac.caltech.edu
Free astronomy software
Free science software
Astrophotography