HOU Image Processing Software (HOU-IP)

For PC and Mac

HOU high school and middle school curricula both rely on students being able to get real observatory telescope images and then analyze those images with image processing software. HOU Image Processing (HOU-IP) software is similar to software used by professional astronomers, but with an interface custom designed for use by middle school or high school students.

HOU-IP is available on the HOU CD-ROM. You can also purchase Site License for all computers at your school and students home computers. See Price List for current price.

HOU-IP functions:

Display Controls	Zoom, Color Palettes, "MinMax" brightness controls, Log scale.
Mathematical Manipulations	Flip, Rotate, Transpose, Shift, Resize, Blur, Filters, Add, Subtract, Multiply, Divide.
Data Tools	Slice (graph brightness vs distance along a line), Image info, Sky parameters, Axes, Find objects, Aperture (brightness measuring tool), Histogram
Standard Software Features	Open and Save FITS format files (FITS is astronomical "industry standard" format for images), Print, Save as bit map.

With the advent of Mac OSX, recent Mac operating systems no longer support "Classic" environment, so the Mac version of HOU IP will not function on newer Macs. We are developing native Mac OSX Image Processing software so stay tuned.

Meantime, following image processing softare programs have Mac OSX versions and are available for free:

MicroObservatory Image software from the MicroObservatory project.
SalsaJ software from EUHOU (European HOU). Based on Image J.
To try it out, below are detailed instructions, involving getting latest java support software from Apple (for free):
1. The program is known to work with Mac OS X Tiger (10.4), if you download J2SE 5.0 Release 4 (PPC) and install it.
2. Download the latest version of SalsaJ for Mac (SalsaJ_V1.1-Mac.tgz - 1.7 Mb)
3. Un-tar and unzip (e.g. with Stuffit), and open the folder named SalsaJ.
4. To run, just double-click the file salsaj.jar inside the folder SalsaJ/
  Important:
  To get menu items to work, you need to click on the SalsaJ toolbar first - it's a tad bit odd, and it's easy to forget about. If you don't get used to clicking in the toolbar before accessing the menu items, you'll think the program has hung, but it hasn't. I'd say it's a bug that needs fixing. But the program is fully usable.
Makali'i — Subaru Image Proecessor.
DS9 Data Analysis Software Chandra Education
MIRA AL from Mirametrics
CCDSoft and The Sky from Software Bisque
MaxImDL from Diffraction Limited
Photoshop Fits Liberator