All-Sky Surveys
All-Sky Surveys
All-sky surveys are two-dimensional images of the sky that we wrap onto the “celestial sphere.” They are composed of many images taken from a ground- or space-based telescope, carefully stitched together to create one large picture of the sky.
Because these are two-dimensional images, they are frozen at an arbitrary distance. Once you leave the solar neighborhood, they are no longer accurate and should be turned off.
These all-sky images come from telescopes that are sensitive to the entire electromagnetic (EM) spectrum, from the long-wavelength, low-frequency radio waves to the short-wavelength, high-frequency Gamma rays. In this section, we present a sampling of these images. For a refresher on these different wavelengths of light, please see “Electromagnetic Spectrum.”
As with all images in Partiview, their brightness is controlled with the alpha command. With the Alpha Slider (choose alpha from the Slider Menu), it is easy to adjust an image's transparency if you would like it to appear brighter.
Let's first look at the visible all-sky survey.
Subsections
- Visible All-Sky Survey
- Atomic Hydrogen Survey
- Carbon Monoxide All-Sky Survey
- Far Infrared Survey
- IRAS Composite All-Sky Survey
- Two Micron (2MASS) All-Sky Survey
- Hydrogen-Alpha All-Sky Survey
- Gamma-Ray All-Sky Survey
© 2002-2005 American Museum of Natural History
Last Modified: 2007-12-19 by Brian Abbott