Additional Resources for People
Who Really Want to Get a Taste of Astrophysics Research
Data Analysis Tools (available for FREE)
- SAOImage
DS9:
-
- Astronomical Data Visualization Application. Useful for reading and viewing astronomical images in FITS format.
- Fv:
The Interactive FITS File Editor
- This tool can read (and write) FITS data files. In addition to displaying FITS image data, it can also read more general FITS file content, such as tables.
- VisIt:
A Sophisticated Visualization Tool for 3-D datasets
- This tool can view a number of complex 3-D data standards. It is available for multiple computing platforms.
- POVray Raytracer: An Open-Source Quality Ray-Tracer
- I'm developing several animations and data visualizations using this product.
N-Body Simulation Software
These programs might be useful for demonstrations of some problems outlined on this site. Some have sample configuration files which illustrate many orbital evolution configurations. A listing here does not constitute an endorsement, just a pointer for further exploration and a sample of what can be found with a simple online search. I've personally experimented with only a fraction of these programs.
Books with Astrophysical Simulation Projects
- Astrophysics
with a PC
by Paul Hellings
- A book with introductory-level programs on
astrophysical modeling. The programs are written in BASIC but are
relatively easy ports to other programming languages.
- Computer
Modeling: From Sports to Spaceflight... From Order to Chaos
by J.M.A. Danby
- This book provides an excellent introduction to
computer
modeling applied not just in the physical sciences but in sociology,
ecology, medicine, and economics as well.
Data Centers used in this Project
- The NASA Astrophysics Data System
- This archive provides a powerful search engine for tracking down research papers. This project has made extensive use of this system. For some journals, full PDF versions of research papers are available through this service.
- arXiv.org e-Print archive
- Another repository for research papers on a variety of physical and mathematical sciences. Full papers can be downloaded as PostScript and PDF.
- Astronomer's
Bazaar
- The CDS Service for astronomical Catalogues.
- Australia
Telescope National Facility Pulsar Group
- The main catalog for precision information about
pulsar observations. Also home of "The Dish".
- Sloan
Digital Sky Survey/SkyServer
- Web-based tools and access to data. Includes a number of ready-made exercises for classroom use.
- Astronomical Data Center
- This site is no longer active but fortunately the
datasets have been preserved and are available through the CDS site (see below).
This link is kept active for historical reasons as it was the first
large data archive I accessed for this project.
Physics Education Resources
- comPADRE: Resources for Physics & Astronomy Education
- A searchable metadata collection of online physics and astronomy education resources.
- PSIGate: Physical Sciences Information Gateway
- Searchable links to numerous animations, Java applets, and other tools for learning about the physical sciences.
Last Modified: Tue Nov 24 23:41:17 2009