Aug 13, 2006 - 02:10:34 CDT
Back when I was barely in my teens - way, way back when it was the 20th century and the term "Internet" referred to a nylon netting that fit inside a slightly larger nylon netting - I bought an oversized, dark blue hardcover book containing black and white telescope photos of galaxies.Stunning in clarity and form, these photographs opened my eyes to the vastness and beauty of the universe, initiating a personal interest in astronomy that has never abated.
When I needed a shot of inspiration or a sense of context for what seemed to be a big problem in my life, my atlas of the galaxies helped put things in proper perspective.
I learned about the Hubble classification system for galaxies, a way to organize and catalog galaxies by shape and type. I studied the De Vaucouleurs extensions to the Hubble system. I explored the Messier and NGC catalogs of galaxies.
Sadly, that book was lost in a house fire earlier this year.
But the Internet offers a welcome and, in many ways better, substitute for the decades old black and white pictures.
Within a few minutes and a few mouse clicks, I can access and download any number of high resolution, digital space images. And the picture pool I can choose from is vast - the Hubble Space Telescope image gallery alone features more than 750,000 images. The Mars Rover expeditions have collected more than 160,000 ground level images of the Red Planet.
And there are tens of thousands more available taken during manned space missions from Mercury to Apollo, from the Space Shuttle to the International Space Station.
Photo galleries built from "fly by images" captured by spacecraft such as Casinni, Stardust, Deep Impact, Voyager, Pioneer and others offer up close views of planets, asteroids and other phenomena.
Bottom line: With the Internet, I have a view of the universe second to none.
I can literally recreate my beloved atlas of the galaxies with high quality, color digital images from the Internet.
Here are just a few good places to start your own exploration of the galaxies:
HubbleSite
www.hubblesite.org
To browse the Hubble collection, go to www.hubblesite.org/gallery/album/. You also can download images suitable for printing and framing. Go to www.hubblesite.org/gallery/printshop/ for details.
Mars Rover Expedition
marsrovers.nasa.gov/home/
To view all the raw images taken by the spacecraft (we're talking more than 160,000 total), go to marsrovers.nasa.gov/gallery/all/ and select either "Spirit" or "Opportunity." To view all the images used in news releases, click the "Press Release Images" link.
JSC Digital Image Collection
images.jsc.nasa.gov/
Welcome to the JSC Digital Image Collection!
An archive of more than 9,000 NASA press release photos covering America's manned space exploration programs from Mercury to the Space Shuttle.
Galaxy Photos
www.galaxyphoto.com
Photographer Jason Ware has posted hundreds of digital images he has either taken himself or collected. A great site to browse. High resolution versions of the photos are viewable online.
NASA Image Exchange
nix.nasa.gov
Search or browse NASA's vast image collection, spread across numerous Web sites. A good starting point in a search for specific types of photos.
Planetary Photojournal
photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/index.html
A great place to find great photos from various spacecraft missions.
NASA's Great Image Collection
grin.hq.nasa.gov
A "best of the best" collection of thousands of NASA images over the years.
(Keith Darnay is the webmaster and designer for bismarcktribune.com. His Web site, featuring this column going back to 1995, is a www.darnay.com.iec.)
Hero wrote on Aug 18, 2007 9:52 AM:
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