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Posted by: Mareike May 24 2013, 07:47 AM

Dear all,

We're looking for stunning space science images for our 'Space Science Image of the week' feature (www.esa.int/ssiotw) on the main European Space Agency website.

We love looking at your work and have been amazed by the wealth of images at the Amateur Space Images website. We'd like our readers to see it too and would be delighted to feature some of your excellent pictures.

Our Web Portal www.esa.int attracts a broad spectrum of people interested in space and space activities. It also links visitors to our more specialised Space Science websites www.esa.int/science and sci.esa.int dealing with ESA's scientific and research activities in the fields of Planetary Science, Astrophysics, Astronomy and Fundamental Physics for the science and space communities.

If you have recently processed an image of one of our missions which you would like to share with us and the rest of the world, please let us know.
We invite you to send us your best photos by e-mail to scicom@esa.int or by replying to this thread. You can either attach your image or refer us to a web location where the image is available (e.g. photo album, blog etc.).

Please include your name, contact e-mail address, your geographical location, the date of the image, the camera/telescope you used, and any imaging/processing details that you would like to share.

The images submitted can be in jpeg, png or tiff format. The only condition is that the images should be from ESA missions.

By submitting an image you grant ESA the right to use your image on the esa.int web portal, and on ESA social media channels such as Flickr, Facebook and Twitter. Your name will of course always be acknowledged in the credit line. We are also happy to refer our readers to the original website where you have posted the image if you wish (e.g. your own blog or photo album) . As an example you may want to look at this recent 'Space Science image of the week’ of the Moon raising over Earth, taken by Rosetta and processed by Emily Lakdawalla: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Moonrise_over_Earth_by_Rosetta

We look forward to hearing from you!

Kind regards,
Mareike Homfeld
(ESA Science Communication Officer)

Posted by: Ant103 May 25 2013, 01:22 PM

This is an interesting offer Seriously.

But. On AmateurSpaceImage, you should have seen that most of the pictures are coming from NASA's spacecrafts. Why? Because on most of their mission (for not saying all), ALL of the images taken by all the cameras are freely available on their respective official websites. MER, MSL, SDO, Cassini, MRO, Odyssey, etc. and the list is quite long.

I visit sometime the MEX and VEX websites. And what I can recall is that there is no place to find the RAW images from these spacecrafts. The only data available are those the ESA produce. Sorry to say that but this is sad. How can we submit process picture if there are in fact not-so-much pictures to process ? Why can't we found the imagery made by Venus Express ? Or Mars Express ?

This is kinda rude, but if with ESA we can have the same politic about science outreach than NASA, amateur like me could put their hand on these images and do some productions.

But I leave you the benefice of the doubt, and to prove to me that I'm wrong . Which I hope so .

Posted by: Bjorn Jonsson May 25 2013, 02:52 PM

If by "RAW" you mean JPG (or comparable format) in near-realtime you are correct (with the exception of the Mars Express VMC). However, images can be downloaded in PDS format from ESA's Planetary Science Archive, see http://www.rssd.esa.int/index.php?project=PSA

This is comparable to NASA's Planetary Data System (PDS). For example, there are tens (hundreds?) of thousands of Mars and Venus Express images there but as in the PDS this is not real time data.

Note: ESA's FTP site (from where most of the data can be downloaded) appears to be down at the time I'm writing this but I was downloading VEX data there yesterday and everything worked fine then.

Posted by: Ant103 May 25 2013, 07:18 PM

Yes, that was exactly what I was speaking about . I have found the "PDS-like" place, but the way to handle these data is more complicated than JPEG immediately released. I mean, the effect is not the same. Of course I can work with the true RAW data, but it will be for a more accurate result than an aesthetic and approximative one. Working with PDS-like dat is not so intuitive than with JPEG.

Posted by: ugordan May 25 2013, 09:35 PM

Well, if easy opening of source images is all you're after, you can most of the times get that as well. Rosetta OSIRIS sets include full resolution browse JPGs for their PSA/PDS releases, for example http://pdssbn.astro.umd.edu/holdings/ro-m-osinac-3-mars-marsswingby-v1.4/browse/2007_02.

Not that I would ever recommend using uncalibrated JPG versions over calibrated IMGs when you're already there...

Posted by: elakdawalla May 28 2013, 03:07 AM

Damia, I had this argument with Stu a couple of years ago and I turned him into a PDS hound. Given all the labor you put into your mosaics, I honestly think it's strange that you don't begin with the higher-quality archival data when it is so easy to handle. It takes a couple of extra steps to begin with, but that is so little an amount of time compared to the time you put in to process it, and the reward is well worth it.

Posted by: Bjorn Jonsson May 29 2013, 07:30 PM

In one case using the PDS data can even be a bit easier than using JPGs: When making mosaics. When mosaics are made from JPGs the images have often been automatically contrast stretched and this makes it more complicated to create seamless mosaics. This is usually not a problem when using the PDS stuff.

It's true though that nothing beats the JPGs if you want to process images very shortly after they are acquired. Months pass until data gets released to the PDS (or PSA in ESA's case) and that isn't likely to change.

Posted by: Ant103 Jun 4 2013, 11:00 PM

Yes Emily, you're absolutely right. But with PDS I have the feeling to progress with a band over my eyes, because it needs special software in order to read it (PDS Data Reader plugin for ImageJ in my case. There was a Gimp plugin once, but it can't handle the 2.6 version). I.e. with MER PDS, I'm always using the codename of the image available on the Jpeg one. Because there is no way I can have a "preview" of the data I will get. This is long, but yet, after processing a panorama with PDS imagery, the satisfaction is great (my last one was http://www.db-prods.net/blog/2012/11/04/opportunity-au-cratere-santa-maria-2/)

What I was saying is that in order to start a work with PDS imagery, you should know at what you are looking for. In contrary, it's just like picking blindly files and hope to put your hand on the good data set, and start working with it.

But I would like to add the I LOVE working with PDS, when I can see exactly with what I'm dealing with. Nothing is better than a true RAW uncompressed image.

Posted by: Mareike Jul 2 2013, 09:29 AM

Hi all,
Just to let you know, new versions of VEX VIRTIS data sets, including calibrated data up to December 2012, are now accessible in the http://goo.gl/Lf5SL.

Enjoy!

Mod:fixed link

Posted by: ugordan Jul 2 2013, 04:50 PM

Are there any plans for release of the Rosetta Earth (Mars as well?) flyby VIRTIS data?

Posted by: Mareike Jul 4 2013, 07:21 AM

The Rosetta VIRTIS team produced and provided data of the Earth fly-bys and Mars fly-by but they did not pass the Steins nor the Lutetia review. As we work with PDS - Rosetta is an international mission - we also have to follow the heavy process of the reviews.

The team is very close to deliver the updated Lutetia data set. If this data set is accepted by PSA and PDS, the team will quickly produce the rest of the data sets.

We can't give a precise schedule but we'll let you know.

Posted by: ugordan Jul 4 2013, 08:33 AM

Thank you for that info, I'm looking forward to those flyby datasets!

Posted by: Mareike Jul 4 2013, 08:51 AM

The PSA also has a twitter account where data releases are reported. Follow @esapsanews

Posted by: Mareike Aug 13 2013, 02:48 PM

Hi all,
Just to let you know, new Mars Express ASPERA raw data from July to Dec 2012 are available and accessible in theftp://psa.esac.esa.int/pub/mirror/MARS-EXPRESS/ASPERA-3/MEX-M-ASPERA3-2-3-EDR-RDR-NPI-EXT3-V1.0/.

Have fun!

Mareike

Posted by: Airbag Aug 13 2013, 06:31 PM

Thanks Mareike.

On a whim, I picked a random data set and extracted 100 sets of counts for each of the 32 sensors and displayed them by sensor (energy band); it gives you some idea of what the data looks like for those who want to take it further:

Airbag