Nasa wants you to help search for spectacular but overlooked
images from the Hubble
Hubble has made more than a million observations during its two
decades in orbit. Astronomers working with Hubble data have created
amazing, iconic images of gaseous nebulae, forming stars, and massive galaxies.
Only a handful of researchers have looked at much of the Hubble
archive, which is stored in an online public database. Nasa and the European
Space Agency, which jointly run Hubble's website, want people to
discover what's been overlooked.
The agencies are now running two contests for the best
hardly-before-seen Hubble pictures. Because the multifaceted images
are scientific data and not normal digital photographs, they
contain far more information than is visible to the naked eye. By
manipulating the images, members of the public may potentially
reveal a different side of a famous picture such as the one above
or uncover something completely new.
For Hubble's Hidden Treasures Contest, amateur
astronomers can use simple online tools to adjust the zoom,
contrast, and color balance on images, and save the work in a
standard JPEG form. Upload the pictures to a special Flickr page and they may be featured as
future Hubble images of the week (or perhaps find
their way onto Wired.com's space photo of the day collection). The user who
submits the best photo will win an iPod touch.
If you want to dig deeper and learn how to use some astronomical
image processing software, try Hubble's Hidden Treasures Image Processing
Contest. Users can download raw Hubble data and manipulate the
files to produce beautiful new results. Several different software
options exist for the interested amateur image processor, including
a free Photoshop plugin called Fits Liberator. Participants can upload their
images to the competition's Flickr page and the winner will receive an
Both competitions close on 31 May, 2012. You can check out the
competition's website or Facebook page for more information.