By Tariq Malik
SPACE.com
Astronomers working with the Hubble Space Telescope (news – web sites) often build spectacular space images based on the raw data taken by the orbital instrument. But new thanks to some new software that power can sit in the hands of anyone, not just scientists, equipped with a computer and a digital imaging program.
The software, called FITS Liberator, is actually a plugin application for the imaging software Adobe Photoshop and is now available free at the Hubble’s European website. The plugin allows space image enthusiasts to piece together in Photoshop the same raw data that were once reserved for astronomers with highly specialized imaging tools could touch.