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Parallel-Processing Astronomical Image Analysis Tools for HST and SIRTF
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| This proposal describes a two-year research plan to develop and implement several parallel-processing astronomical image-analysis tools for stellar imaging data from the Hubble Space Telescope and the Space Infrared Telescope Facility. The new data analysis software tools will be written with the goal of enhancing the scientific return of the HST and SIRTF missions as well as future planned NASA astrophysical missions like the Next Generation Space Telescope. This project combines the enabling image-processing technology of the Principal InvestigatorÂ’s new digital PSF-fitting MATPHOT algorithm for accurate and precise CCD stellar photometry with enabling technology of Beowulf clusters which offer excellent cost/performance ratios for computational power. Data mining tools to do quick-look stellar photometry and other scientific visualization tasks will also be written and used in order to investigate how such tools could be used at the data servers of NASA archival imaging data like the Space Telescope Science Institute. Such data mining tools have the potential of making the serving of archival imaging data more efficient while simultaneously providing a more rewarding user experience for visiting astronomers. This project is structured into two one-year phases. The major software products (including original source code and detailed documentation) developed as part of this research project will be tested by expert optical and infrared astronomers before being released to the general astronomical community. The project software products will be posted (at the end of each one-year phase) on web sites dedicated to this project on the web server of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory. |
Bibliography
| | Stellar photometry and astrometry with discrete point spread functions
Mighell, Kenneth; Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, (August 11, 2005) 316 pp. 861--878
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