QLFits: The Quick Look generator for FITS files

Here’s a guest post by software developer and astronomer Cédric Foellmi describing the cool little plugin he’s created. I’ve been using it and I love being able to use Quick Look to look at a spectrum instead of having to go through the whole rigmarole of xgterm – iraf – onedspec – cd /blah/blah – splot.

Ever dreamed of looking at the content of your FITS files without opening fv, SkyCat or ds9? Wouldn’t it be great to just flow through a directory of FITS files to visually pinpoint the one spectrum you’re looking for? Sick and tired of typing “more” or “less” to dig through lengthy FITS headers? If so, read on to learn about QLFits, a little plugin that enables Quick Look and Cover Flow view for FITS images and spectra.

QLFits allows you to directly see your FITS files in the Finder. In Cover Flow view and in thumbnails, the images and spectra are drawn on-the-fly with the “OBJECT” keyword shown in big fonts. In the Quick Look preview, the full colorized header is shown, with a quick summary first, in addition to the full-scale images (up to 2000 pixels wide). In ESO produced FITS files, there are links to the ESO archive that contain the proposal abstract and weather conditions (seeing!) for that frame. Multi-Extension FITS files? No problem! Just select the extension you want with the buttons. In the case of spectra, the spectrum is drawn below the header just like images. The wavelength scale is calculated based on header keywords.

QLFits is available for 4 € (about 5.7 US$). A free demo is available to play with before buying the full version.

Also at http://www.softtenebraslux.com is a free Spotlight plugin for FITS files that allows you to make Spotlight queries based on specific astronomical header information (observation date, airmass, right ascension and declination, telescope name, etc.).

QLFits, 4 € (about 5.7 US$)