Glenn Gombert's BATCH image processing program

Glenn Gombert
ggombert@infinet.com
Feb 21, 1997

I have just uploaded a new version of the TASS Batch Processing program to Storm (Batch.ZIP) which now automates the calculation of the World Coordianate System (WCS) Parameters which are inserted in the FITS image headers prior to the Star Catalog being calculated by the Sextractor Program. This allows Sextractor to cacluate (directly) RA and DEC for each object that is detected in a particlaur image. It should provide a complete Astrometric and Photometric solution for generating Star-Lists from TASS Images.

Two things must be done to before the program is run:

  1. The center must be must be determiend for each image so that the Astrometric solution that is caluclate is accurate. The RA and DEC must be inserted into the header of each image. This can usually be done by measuring the center of the field for the first image in a sequence and then a fixed offset can be added to the RA and DEC of the following images.
  2. The photometric "zero point" for an image sequence must be precisley determined, based on at least one "standard" star in the image sequence taken through one of the photometric filters. Arnie's list of calibrated stars should prove very helpful in this reguard.

I will generate several TASS Technical Notes on how these two items can be accomplished in the next several days. To calculate the WCS paramters the Hubble Guide Star CDROM is required or a compresses version of the HGSC data can be downloaded from the University of IOWA at http://inferno.physics.uiowa.edu

The Batch processing program reads the output from Norman's data acquision program and extracts the file names from a particular nights image run. The progam is run by the command line input: 

                  "batch -w tasslog.tm3"

The "-w" switch is used to calculate the WCS Key Words for the FITS image headers. The program does not (yet) provide the capability of subtracting dark-frames from images but I will add this to the program over the weekend.

If anyone has any questions please let me know.

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