Make color images from astronomical observations

There are many thousands of astronomical data files in our archive. We have created an easy-to-use archive search page.

Find the best observations

 We have looked through the archive of observations and marked ones which are particularly good. If you don’t know the name of the object you want the data for, this is a good option for you.

1. Go to the archive search page
2. Check the "Best observations" box under the Object Name box.
3. Hit Submit

How to search by name

1. If you have a favorite night sky object, you can search for it by name with the Object Name box.
2. Then set the date range to one of the preset values; past month, past 6 months, all dates (this search may take significantly longer than the others) or a custom date range.
3. You can leave the Optional settings, or select a particular telescope and filter
4. Hit Submit

Download the data files

The search will show all the observations which match your request with a quicklook thumbnail image. Click on the thumbnail and you will see a larger image. This image has been automatically created by a data processing pipeline and is not the best quality. It does a pretty good job but a person (i.e. you!) can do a better job.

Click "Further details and Data" for more about that observation and links to the data files.

This screen has a summary of the observation. You can see the co-ordinates the telescope was pointing at and the filters used.

In the row "FITS Data" you will find links to the data files. 

Please note: To download the FITS files you have to right click the link and choose "Save link as" otherwise it will look like junk!

Once you have your data use our ‘How to make color astronomical images with Photoshop ’ guide to process these files into stunning images.