Astronomy Sites for the General Public

Astronomy Sites on the Web: A Sampling for the General Public

Asterices (***) indicate some of the most impressive sites.

Lists of Astronomy Sites

***AstroWeb
http://www.cv.nrao.edu/fits/www/astronomy.html
...a comprehensive list of astronomical sites on the Web, sorted by topics and searchable. Includes observatories, professional journals, amateur organizations, educational resources, pretty images -- you name it! Highly recommended.

Astronomical Images

Image display software

**FITSView
http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~bcotton/fitsview.html
...free FITS display software for virtually any kind of computer (UNIX, Windows, Macintosh,...), from Bill Cotton of NRAO. FITS is the standard format for astronomical images.

Astronomy Picture of the Day
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

...a series of lovely images and brief explanations of their import

Astronomy Digital Image Library (NCSA)
http://imagelib.ncsa.uiuc.edu/imagelib/
...includes free viewing software for many different formats (GIF, FITS, PostScript, etc.) for most operating systems (UNIX, Windows, Macintosh, etc.). This is a professional resource for finding FITS images that have been published and are now available for general use. They have a very nice set of sample images (http://imagelib.ncsa.uiuc.edu/imagelib/SampleImages.html).
Maintained by the National Center for Supercomputer Application.

Astronomical Surveys
These services let you enter the name of an object or its coordinates, and return images of it and the surrounding region as taken in various large surveys. These are available for most of the sky, but tend not to be the best images one could possibly find, in terms of highest resolution, longest integration, prettiest, etc.

***SkyView
http://skview.gsfc.nasa.gov/skyview.html (X-ray, UV, IR, Optical, Radio)
...the catalog server to end all catalog servers: includes X-ray, ultraviolet, infrared, optical, and radio image surveys, all available for free to the public. A real revolution in the way astronomers do business.
Maintained by the Goddard Space Flight Center.
***STScI Digitized Sky Survey
http://stdatu.stsci.edu/cgi-bin/dss_form (Optical)
...optical images of the entire sky. A lovely tool, originally intended simply to help people write proposals for Hubble Space Telescope (which maintains this server).
The NRAO VLA Sky Survey
http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~jcondon/nvss.html (Radio: 20cm)
...a survey of the northern radio sky with the Very Large Array.
Maintained by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory.
The VLA FIRST Survey
http://sundog.stsci.edu/ (Radio: 20cm)
...another survey of the radio sky with the Very Large Array. Covers less of the sky than the NVSS, but at higher resolution.

Astronomical Images, sorted by type

***The Nine Planets***
http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/nineplanets/nineplanets/nineplanets.html
(Solar system)
...a model of what an astronomical site could and should be, by the fabulous Bill Arnett. A large number of mirror sites over this tour-de-force in French, Polish, Dutch, Japanese, Norwegian, Portugese, and Slovene; Spanish is on the way.
**Views of the Solar System
http://bang.lanl.gov/solarsys/
(Solar system)
...lots of beautiful images of planets, moons, asteroids, and other solar system objects.
Available in Spanish and Portugese as well.
Maintained by Los Alamos National Laboratories.
Web Messier
(Galaxies, nebulae, star clusters)
...another beautiful site by Bill Arnett, this one devoted to Messier objects.
Messier Objects
http://zebu.uoregon.edu/messier.html
(Galaxies, nebulae, star clusters)
...more pictures of objects easily visible with a backyard telescope.
Web Nebulae
http://www.seds.org/billa/twn/
(Nebulae)
...yet another Bill Arnett site!

Astronomical Images made by NRAO scientists
Hey, even radio astronomers get to show off sometimes!

Alan Bridle's radio galaxies
http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~abridle/images.htm
(VLA)
Jean Eilek
http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/~jeilek/research/EilekRes1.html
(radio galaxies, MHD, pulsars, ...) (VLA)
John Hibbard
http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~jhibbard
(mostly interacting galaxies) (VLA)
Greg Taylor's radio galaxies
http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/~gtaylor/radiogal.html
(VLBI)
Al Wootten
http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~awootten
(star clusters, molecular clouds, etc.) (12m)
Min Su Yun
http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/~myun/
(interacting galaxies, high-redshift galaxies) (VLA)

Misc. Images

***Hubble Space Telescope
http://www.stsci.edu
...the most amazing set of images on-line. Includes press releases, astronomical background information, and so on and on.
Space Movie Archive (Bordeaux, France)
http://graffiti.u-bordeaux.fr/MAPBX/roussel/anim-e.html
...space-related movies (eclipses, science fiction clips, satellites, space shuttle), in MPEG, QuickTime, and other popular formats.

Educational Links

***Sonoma State University Complilation of Educational Links
http://yorty.sonoma.edu/people/faculty/tenn/Educational.html
...the best set of educational links I've seen, from kindergarden through college.
Royal Greenwich Observatory Leaflet Series
http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/RGO/leaflets/
...short, introductory pages from one of England's national observatories
Radio Astronomy Fundamentals
http://www.nrao.edu/intro/
...a short introduction to radio astronomy, including history, explanation, and images.
Virtual Radio Interferometer
http://wwwnar.atnf.csiro.au/astronomy/vri.html
...a virtual radio interferometer -- see how the VLA works! Brought to us by some enterprising chaps in Australia.

NASA Sites

NASA has some of the nicest sites in the business. Here's a small selection.

NASA Home Page
http://www.nasa.gov/NASA_homepage.html/
***Hubble Space Telescope
http://www.stsci.edu/
...need I say more?
Mars Pathfinder
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/default.html
The Shuttle Home Page
http://shuttle.nasa.gov/index.html/
...look here to find out what's going on up there

Free Programs to Run on Your PC

***Fourmilab
http://www.fourmilab.ch/
...some wonderful freeware from John Walker. Includes homeplanet (a very nice planetarium program for Windows), skyscrsv (a screen saver for Windows), solar (an interactive orrery), yoursky (Web-based planetarium), and more.

Professional Utilities

These sites are the ones I use all the time, and are intended primarily for professional astronomers. On the off chance you wish to dive into the professional literature, these are good places to start -- and all are free and open to the public!

The NASA Extragalactic Database
http://nedwww.ipac.caltech.edu/
...type in the name of your favorite galaxy (or its coordinates), and get a list of all the related journal articles, catalog entries, magnitude estimates, etc.; as well as the best available position, and an optical finding chart. NASA does it again!
Astronomical Data Center
http://adc.gsfc.nasa.gov/
...an easy way to access computer-readable versions (often simple text) of an amazing number of astronomical catalogs.
Astrophysics Data System
http://adswww.harvard.edu/
...search the astronomical literature without pawing through all those musty journals. Want to see what that scientist you saw on CNN has been doing? Type in her name and off you go!

Michael Rupen's home page

Last modified 03 August 2004

mrupen@nrao.edu