Description
A FITS file straight from a telescope won't open in an ordinary image viewer, and even when it does, it can't tell you how bright a star is.
SAOImage DS9 is a free astronomical imaging tool from the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian. Open a FITS file and browse it with panels for coordinates and pixel values; it also reads NRRD, ENVI and common GIF, TIFF, JPEG and PNG. It is written in Tk/Tcl and runs on Windows, macOS and Linux.
Many formats: FITS first, plus NRRD, ENVI flat-binary rasters and common bitmaps.
Info panels: A navigation thumbnail and pixel and coordinate readouts sit next to the main view.
Multi-frame comparison: Compare several images side by side in one window.
Color maps and scaling: Adjust the color map and stretch to pull out faint structure.
SAOImage DS9 is a free astronomical imaging tool from the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian. Open a FITS file and browse it with panels for coordinates and pixel values; it also reads NRRD, ENVI and common GIF, TIFF, JPEG and PNG. It is written in Tk/Tcl and runs on Windows, macOS and Linux.
Features
Many formats: FITS first, plus NRRD, ENVI flat-binary rasters and common bitmaps.
Info panels: A navigation thumbnail and pixel and coordinate readouts sit next to the main view.
Multi-frame comparison: Compare several images side by side in one window.
Color maps and scaling: Adjust the color map and stretch to pull out faint structure.
