EZPHOT
COPYRIGHT (c) 1996-1997 by Jerry B. Gunn
E-mail = jgunn@mtco.com
www.mtco.com/~jgunn
All Rights Reserved.
SHAREWARE NOTICE:
THIS PROGRAM IS YOURS TO EXAMINE FREE OF CHARGE FOR 30 DAYS. IF YOU
CHOOSE
NOT TO PURCHASE THIS SHAREWARE PRODUCT, YOU MUST REMOVE ALL FILES
DOWNLOADED OR CREATED USING THIS PROGRAM FROM ALL FORMS OF STORAGE MEDIA.
YOU MAY DISTRIBUTE THIS SHAREWARE PRODUCT ONLY IN ITS ENTIRETY (ITS
ORIGINAL DOWNLOADED FORM). NO CHARGE FOR DISTRIBUTION IS ALLOWED.
BECAUSE
THIS IS A SHAREWARE PRODUCT AND YOU HAVE AMPLE TIME TO DETERMINE WHETHER
OR
NOT YOU LIKE THIS PRODUCT PRIOR TO ITS PURCHASE THERE WILL BE NO REFUNDS.
DISCLAIMER:
ALTHOUGH I HAVE TESTED THIS PROGRAM EXTENSIVELY, I ASSUME NO LIABILITY
FOR
ANY DAMAGE, LOSS OF DATA, OR ANY OTHER PROBLEMS RELATED OR BELIEVED
RELATED
TO THIS PROGRAM.
LICENSING AGREEMENT:
BY PURCHASING AND REGISTERING A COPY OF EZPHOT.EXE YOU ARE LICENSED TO
USE
EZPHOT.EXE ON ONE COMPUTER ONLY. FOR ADDITIONAL SITE LICENSES AND FEES,
CONTACT THE AUTHOR DIRECTLY (ADDRESSES LISTED ABOVE).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------O P E R A T I O N S
M A N U A L
-------------------------------------------------------------------------I.
Preface
II.
What is EZPHOT
III.
How Does EZPHOT Work
IV.
Installing EZPHOT
V.
Operating EZPHOT
VI.
Output Files
VII.
Registering Your Copy
VIII.
Appendices
Appendix A :
Appendix B :
-------------------------------------------------------------------------Section I.
Preface
Dear Fellow Photometrists,
When I bought my CCD camera, I was excited about the possibilities of
doing
photometry on many stars at once, since I had been previously limited to
aperture photometry with a photomultiplier tube photometer. When I
started
reducing the large amount of data in the CCD image frames, I immediately
began thinking about a better way. EZPHOT is the beginings of that
better way. A program of this sort will constantly evolve to perform
better.
Suggestions are always welcome. New releases will add many more features
such as:
>
>
Color transformations
Automatic star field image alignment and data consolidation
Automatic differential photometry
FITS file viewer
Graphics mode star selection
-------------------------------------------------------------------------Section II.
What is EZPHOT
EZPHOT.EXE is a tool to enable automatic photometry of CCD image frames.
It
will recognize FITS files and SBIG files.
REGISTER.EXE is a tool to align stars identified by EZPHOT into the same
coordinate system. EZPHOT.EXE requires about 350KB of conventional RAM
and 2MB of extended memory managed by EMM386.
REGISTER also does differential photometry on a variable, comparison and
check star of your choosing. REGISTER.EXE requires about 450KB of
conventional RAM and no extended memory.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------Section III.
How Does EZPHOT Work
EZPHOT.EXE inputs a image file, applies a flat field if specified, finds
all
the stars in an image and then performs aperture photometry on the image.
REGISTER.EXE inputs .PHO files created by from EZPHOT.EXE and aligns them
into the same coordinate system. REGISTER requires a minimum of six
stars
in a .PHO file in order to align the frames. A .REG file is created for
each
star that has a pound sign (#) at the start of its name. A file is then
created for each star and data from each CCD frame processed is included
in the file. Differential photometery can then be performed by selecting
a variable, comparison and check star. The differences between the
magnitudes of these stars is output in a .DIF file.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------Section IV.
Installing EZPHOT
Create a directory named EZPHOT, copy EZPHOT.ZIP to the EZPHOT directory
and use PKUNZIP.EXE to expand the .ZIP file into its components.
Files and their functions:
RCONFIG.DAT
EZPHOT.EXE
ADAND1.FTS
ADAND2.FTS
ADAND3.FTS
FLAT.FTS
EZPHOT.DOC
EZPHOT.PIF
REGISTER.EXE
MASTER.MAS
=
=
=
=
=
=
=
=
=
=
Configuration parameters
Executable program
Sample data file
Sample data file
Sample data file
Sample flat field
Program documentation
.PIF file to use with windows
Executable program
Sample .MAS master file
-------------------------------------------------------------------------Section V.
Operating EZPHOT.EXE
EZPHOT was designed to run with DOS as the operating system. The Windows
application interface can also be used with the included .PIF files.
Program execution will be slower when using Windows.
A.
Make the EZPHOT directory the default directory by typing CD\EZPHOT
B.
Type EZPHOT to start the program
C.
Use the mouse or key sequence Alt F r to set the configuration data.
Set the background magnitude to a value..try around 26. You will
need
to determine a value right for your system in order to get the
absolute magnitude values close to correct. This is the zero point
on the magnitude scale.
Adjust it accordingly.
D.
The Threshold is the minimum counts above the background level that
EZPHOT will recognize as a star. Setting this level too low will
result
in many false stars. Setting it too high will result in only bright
stars being detected. If less than 10 stars are found in an image,
EZPHOT will try again at 1/2 the threshold value.
E. If you will be using a flat field..check the box, otherwise uncheck
it.
Use the space bar to check/uncheck the box.
F.
If you need to subtract a dark frame form each image, check the box.
Use the space bar to check/uncheck the box.
G.
If you want the date corrected to Helio-Centric, check the box with
the spacebar.
H.
Manual data reduction.
1. Use the mouse to select the file menu and select Load Image
Buffer.
Select a file to process from the directory dialog box.
The program will read the image headers and then load the data
into a buffer.
2. If the data is to be flat fielded, select Load Flat Buffer.
Select a file to process from the directory dialog box.
The program will read the image headers and then load the data
into a buffer.
3. Select Buffer Math, Divide Image by Flat to apply the flat frame.
4. Select Photometry, Do Photometry.
I.
Automatic data reduction.
1. Use an existing or make a new directory to hold the files you wish
to process. Copy image files to this directory.
2. Set the configuration: check or uncheck the Flat Field box.
Also select the HJD correction if needed.
3. Select Photometry, AutoPhot to begin the process.
Select the Flat field (it can be in any directory), and then a
file in the directory where you data files to process reside.
4. The program will process all image files it finds in the
directory.
5. Since this process can take several minutes, the procedure may be
halted by pressing the ESC key. The automatic function will stop
after the current file is finished processing.
Processing time:
386DX 33 MHz = 60 sec per image file
586
75 MHz = 10 sec per image file
586 133 MHz = 5 sec per image file
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Section VI.
Operating REGISTER.EXE
REGISTER was designed to run with DOS as the operating system. The
Windows
application interface can also be used with the included .PIF files.
Program execution will be slower when using Windows.
A.
Make the EZPHOT directory the default directory by typing CD\EZPHOT
B.
Use the DOS editor to create a MASTER.MAS file in the directory where
your image frames are located. Open a representative .PHO file
output
by EZPHOT.EXE, preferably close to the center of your time series of
frames, and save it with a file name of MASTER.MAS. IMPORTANT..the
file extension must be .MAS, the file name can be variable if you
choose.
For stars on which you desire data, put a pound sign(#) as the first
character of the first column of data. Do not put a space
after the # sign. See the MASTER.MAS file included for an example.
You may change the first column of data to anything that you wish as
long as it is a valid DOS file name.
C.
Type REGISTER to start the program
D.
Single frame data reduction.
This function will align any .PHO file to the MASTER.MAS file.
1. Use the mouse to select the file menu and select Select Master
File.
Select a file to process from the directory dialog box.
2. Now, select Select .PHO file. This will run a function which
outputs
.REG files which will contain Julian date, location and magnitude
of each star you selected in the MASTER.MAS file with a # sign as
the
first character of the name in column one. EX. #AD_AND
E.
Automatic data reduction.
1. After you have created a MASTER.MAS file, select Batch Process and
then Auto Register Images.
2. Select a MASTER.MAS file. The program will automatically find all
.PHO files and align them to the row and column coordinates in the
MASTER.MAS file. It will generate a .REG file for each .PHO file
in the directory. Then it will read each .REG file and
consolidate
the data for each star into its own file. Now each star with
a # as the beginning character will have all of its data in one
.DAT
file.
3. Since this process can take several minutes, the procedure may be
halted by pressing the ESC key. The automatic function will stop
after the current file is finished processing.
F.
Differential Photometry
1. Differential photometry can be performed on the data from three
stars
by using this option. Select Photmetery and then Differential
Photometery. The program will prompt you for three files. First,
select a star you want as your variable star, then a comparison
star,
lastly a check star. The program will then find the files
containing
the data and match up the Julian dates, then do the subtractions.
The
output is a file with the name of your variable star with a .DIF
file extension.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------Section VI.
EZPHOT Output Files
Program output consists of the following:
FILENAME.STA
col 1
col 2
col 3
col 4
col 5
=
=
=
=
=
=
identified stars and their locations
star #
NAXIS1
NAXIS2
peak pixel value
star width in pixels
FILENAME.PHO
col 1
col 2
col 3
col 4-9
col 10
=
=
=
=
=
=
identified stars and their magnitudes
star #
NAXIS1
NAXIS2
photometry data
instrumental magnitude of star
MASTER.MAS
col
col
col
col
col
1
2
3
4-9
10
=
=
=
=
=
=
created by user from a .PHO file
star #
NAXIS1
NAXIS2
photometry data
instrumental magnitude of star
1
2
3
4
5
=
=
=
=
=
=
created by REGISTER.EXE
Sequence number..really meaningless
NAXIS1
NAXIS2
Instrumental magnitude of star
Julian date of CCD frame
=
created for each star with a # sign before the name
???????.REG
col
col
col
col
col
???????.DAT
col 1
col 2
=
=
Julian date of CCD frame where star originated
Instrumental magnitude of star
???????.DIF
col 1
col 2
col 3
=
=
=
=
contains differential photometry data
Julian date of CCD frame
variable-comparison star magnitude
check-comparison star magnitude
-------------------------------------------------------------------------Section VII.
To register your copy of EZPHOT.EXE, print this form on your printer,
complete the following information (print clearly), and return the
completed form with your check or money order to:
EzPhot
c/o Jerry B. Gunn
1269 N. Skyview Drive
East Peoria, IL
61611
Internet
:
jgunn@mtco.com
Feel free to contact me by either of the above methods regarding any
questions, problems, or comments about EZPHOT.EXE. I would love to hear
from you.
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-------------------------------------------------------------------------THE END
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