Astronomers deal with enormous quantities of data. One night's telescope scan can keep a university astronomy team going for months. Reserving a time slot on a telescope and, more importantly, being able to use the slot, whether it be in the visible, infrared, X-ray or radio region, is a preoccupation of astronomers around the world. The data that they collect is normally the intellectual property of the individual researcher or group for a proprietary period - generally a year. After this time, the complex digital images are available to the wider astronomical community.
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