Hubble Legacy Archive Interactive Display Help
You can look at an image or 2-dimensional spectrum more carefully, and
overlay a source list, by using the interactive display (accessible via
either
the inventory
or images
view). The HLA interactive display is based on
Leif Wilden's
fits2web
Javascript program.
- The image can be moved
either by dragging using the mouse or by using the arrow buttons in the
upper left
(< > ^ v).
The o button recenters the view.
- The +
and - buttons zoom in or
out. The zoom bar shows the current zoom level; you can also click
on the zoom bar to
jump directly to a different zoom. Initially the image is displayed at
its natural
scale, with one image pixel per display pixel. The zoom changes by a
factor of two between levels
and ranges from 4 times larger (1 image
pixel per 4 display pixels) to a size where the entire image is smaller
than 256 pixels on
each side.
- The coordinate box in the upper left shows the current
mouse
position both in
X,Y pixels and in world coordinates. The world coordinates are either
the position on
the sky (RA and Dec) or, for 2-dimensional spectra, the wavelength and
position along
the slit. Note that the wavelengths are not accurate for echelle and
slitless
spectra because they
do not have FITS header WCS keywords that describe the mapping between
position, order
and wavelength on the image.
- The Brighter and Darker
buttons change the
contrast. Note that the image tiles must be reloaded from the
server using
the new contrast setting, so the results are not instantaneous. Most
browsers
cache the images, however, which makes changing back to a previous
contrast setting
happen quickly.
- Type the L or l key on your keyboard to plot
a
horizontal line from the image at the current mouse position, or
type the C or c key to plot a vertical column.
The plot pops up in a new window. Note that the plot takes some time
to appear because it comes from the HLA web server (since the actual
image pixel data are not loaded into the browser.) There are controls
for adjusting the scale, binning options, and units.
- Click the appropriate checkbox to overlay source lists
from the
DAOPHOT and/or SExtractor catalogs constructed from the image. Note
that
the response of the display can be somewhat sluggish if the source list
is large. The source list can be hidden by clicking the checkbox again.
Keep in mind that the SExtractor sources actually use elliptical
isophotes rather than circular apertures. It is also possible to
download
the segmentation image that shows the actual apertures used for the
photometry.
- Click the appropriate checkbox to overlay catalogs from SDSS
(Sloan Digital Sky Survey), 2MASS (Two Micron All Sky Survey), GSC2
(Guide Star Catalog 2), or FIRST (Faint Images of the Radio Sky at
Twenty Centimeters). This can be especially useful for checking the
absolute astrometry of the image.
- Click the printer icon
to print the current view.
You can also use the usual print shortcut for your browser.
- The help button opens a new window showing
this page.