ENGR 190 “How Things Work” – A First-year Seminar
Professor Bill Yang
Spring 2011
ENGR 190 “How Things Work”
Project 1: Hubble Space Telescope Image Contest
Assignment: Individual
Introduction to the project:
In this hands-on project you will create your own Hubble Space Telescope pictures
for a class contest. The raw images will be available for download at the ESA/ESO/NASA
Hubble Space Telescope photo processing website “fits liberator”: http://www.spacetelescope.org/projects/fits_liberator/. You will process the raw images using the fits liberator Hubble Space Telescope
image processor and combine different images acquired using for example X-ray, infrared,
as well as visible imagers into color pictures
of nebulas and stars. The combination will be implemented using the popular engineering
software MATLAB, which is accessible to the class on Kimmel School’s Virtual Computing
Lab (VCL). A lab report is required to document your project and the project grades
will be based on the rubric attached here. At the end of the project, we’ll hold a
peer-voting contest and publish the top three winners. The contest results, however,
will not affect the project grades.
Project background:
Follow the PDF guides posted on course website under HubbleScope project folder:
- Digital color image basics:
A brief introduction of digital images and digital color images. - FITS Liberator User Guide:
User Guide of the NASA’s free image processing package for Hubble Space Telescope images. - VCL User Guide:
Instruction on how to log in on the Virtual Computer Lab. VCL is needed to access the MATLAB for final assembly of your project.
Lab Report:
Detailed documentation of your project should be reflected in your lab report for
this project. You should document the steps you carried out, raw images downloaded,
fits liberator processing parameters, MATLAB processing parameters, as well as your
final results of Hubble Space Telescope images. The reader of your lap report should
be able to repeat your exercise and come up with the exact
images you have obtained. For reference to a general lab report format, check website:
http://www.wcu.edu/11701.asp
Evaluation:
The project grades will be given using the attached rubric.