HelioFITS Studio

A desktop viewer for solar and heliospheric imagery, built around coronagraph and wide-field data such as NASA's PUNCH mission, SOHO/LASCO and PROBA-3/ASPIICS.

Download for MacApple Silicon (M1 or later) · Java included Download for Intel MacDisk image · early build Download for Windows64-bit · Java included · no admin needed Download for Linux64-bit · Java included · please report problems

Version 0.9.1 · pre-release

Field guide (PDF) What's new GitHub

Installing, on every platform

Mac (Apple Silicon): open the disk image and drag the application to Applications. Java comes with it.
Intel Mac: the Intel disk image installs the same way.
Windows: the Windows zip is a portable app; no administrator rights are needed. Right-click it, choose Extract All, then run HFStudio\HFStudio.exe in the folder it makes. It is not code-signed yet, so Windows may say it protected your PC; choose More info, then Run anyway.
Linux: unpack the Linux archive anywhere and run HFStudio/bin/HFStudio. Java comes with it. The Windows and Linux packages need a 64-bit Intel or AMD processor.
Early builds: the Intel Mac and Linux packages carry their own Java and pass our automated checks, but few people have run them yet. Please try them, and tell us how it goes, breakage included.
Anything else: the cross-platform zip runs wherever Java 25 is installed: start run.command, run.sh or run.bat.
The downloads are named HFStudio, the application's short technical name.
Older versions stay available on the releases page.

Cite this software

Gilly, C. R. (2026). HelioFITS Studio (Version 0.9.1) [Computer software]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23541893

Please cite the methods too: the JHelioviewer paper Studio is built on, Müller et al. (2017), Astronomy & Astrophysics 606, A10, https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201730893; and, if you used the RHEF filter, Gilly & Cranmer (2025), Solar Physics 300, 174, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11207-025-02578-x.

@software{gilly_heliofits_studio,
  author = {Gilly, Chris R.},
  title = {{HelioFITS Studio}},
  year = {2026},
  publisher = {Zenodo},
  doi = {10.5281/zenodo.23541893},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23541893}
}

An unofficial fork of JHelioviewer, from the ESA/NASA Helioviewer Project, and not affiliated with it. For Finder and Quick Look previews of FITS files, see HelioFITS Peek. Problems to GitHub or gilly@nwra.com