Coding
With the analysis code, I found that sometimes GALFIT gets lost and the model drifts from the object ... code to find out those objects (easy, but I had to overcome some technical problems to examine these objects ...). On that. That will mean a lot of "eye inspection" exactly what I was afraid of. Figuring out a way to get rid of some of it.
Also a day solving problems. Problems to find a day care for Matheus. We were on a list, that was sure to have a day care, somewhere in town, but SURE. Turns out that SURE became "we full and do not have a place for your child anywhere". That also meant that since we were SURE to have a place, we were not on other waiting lists and now a place is something for NEXT YEAR! Of course we can just stop working for an year ... I really want to understand how the government starts a campaign to increase natality, if a city like Goettingen only have 200 or 300 places in day care for child between 4 and 12 months. If they are expecting the mothers to be, to pause they careers for a whole year ... they are crazy!! Out of their minds!! First you create structure, then you start a campaign!!! Anyway! Trying to solve this.
Matheus also had a pediatrician appointment for general 3 months check up and vaccination. That also meant he needed some extra care for the rest of the day.
Object parameters
Coding a small program to get the object parameters, organize them and also read the images and calculate the residuals ... not much, but something :-)
Paper resubmitted
So, the title talks by itself :-)
Closing comments on it and baby-sitting (wife also needed to finish a paper today).
Calmer friday
Making GALAPAGOS run, it crashes sometimes ... now we got to a point where only Marco Barden can save us :-)
Checking the multicomponent fits that didn't run, now they did. Now trying to figure out an automatic way of analyzing the results ... there will be something around 8000 galaxies, not feasible "by eye" in short time.
Paper revised
So! Today ...
1- Together with ESO's helpdesk we managed to make IDL 7.0 work on the RAZOR. Now GALAPAGOS is frying the 4 dual core processors! It was a "lib-compat". Thanks Uli!!
2- Some discussion with Ricardo Demarco about errors and corrections on velocity dispersion. Nice information! Thanks Ricardo!
3- Got the train, to save Fernanda from a back ache, and finished revising the IGL paper, commenting the modifications and replying the referee. Sent to the co-authors, which hopefully will give me comments tomorrow, or monday, so I can resubmit the paper!!
And it goes
So! The GALFIT modeling is done, still have to analyze the results and see if they are OK, but it's done! And quickly, that's the best part!!
The GALAPAGOS modeling had a small problem on the first object, and it crashed (loosing about 12 hours of computer time), but now it's running. I'm also trying to get it running here at ESO, but there are some issues about IDL to be solved. It will run!
Paper text, improving, modifying, including, as suggested by the referee. Good suggestions, btw!
Today we had the "informal discussion" given by Ricardo Demarco, who spoke about age differences in the Red Sequence. Nice stuff!
Solutions day
A day of finding solutions to the problems and putting things to run!!!
GALAPAGOS! It was collapsing every pair of objects ... playing with the detection threshold should do the trick. At least the number of spurious detected objects decreased considerably. This was last night's home work.
Solving the bad objects problem also!! Despite being marked as bad, these objects were still there!! Was a simple problem! Preparing the bad objects list (coordinates x and y) using a SExtractor catalogue produced in one computer and then running the final catalogue in another computer was the problem. I have no idea WHY positions can change, but ... now it's self consistent.
At the moment the post stamps are being created (again) and if it finishes while I write, the modeling will start today.
On the other problem, the multi-component modeling with GALFIT. The script that automatically generates the GALFIT input files is working and the first cluster is already running on our 4 dual core processors machine! Split in 8 parts, since I'm the only use tonight!! :-))
Lunch talk with Ian McLean about Keck instrumentation, mostly MOSFIRE. Cool instruments!
Also some work in the paper, but not much, I admit. I wanted to get these things running, so that while the computers work for me, I could dedicate myself to the text! That will be tomorrow!
Now going home to sleep, 'cos I'm very very very tired! hehehehehe
Paper + Modeling + Problems
Friday, weekend and today (up to now). Some working on the paper to resubmit it ASAP, some scripting for modeling multiple component automatically using the GALAPAGOS output and problems with the data for one of the clusters that makes GALAPAGOS collapse every pair of objects ... I'm trying to find out a solution.
Today was Faculty Meeting here at ESO. Discussion about funds basically.
Scripting + papering
Scripting a way to generate the GALFIT input files for multiple components from the single component files generated by GALAPAGOS. This seems to work well.
In the train I tried to work on object selection, but there was some missing information and no internet connection. So I took a quick look at our new FORS data and worked on the paper to try to resubmit it ASAP!
busy day!
Galapagos is running.
Some work on the text of the paper after comments and trying to get an automatic way of creating the GALFIT files for the multi component fit we need to do now ...
Still here ...
So, since I couldn't leave on time to buy my broom, I stayed longer, to solve the PSF creation issue and in the meanwhile to look carefully at the referee's comments and start doing something about it. As he says himself, minor comments. I can get this done soon, very soon. But before putting a lot of effort on that, I still want to get something else running, so that I can do that, while the computer do stuff for the next paper.
Galapaging II ...
So! Today was a busy day!
Moving to the new flat in the morning.
Quota problem back in Goettingen, kindly solved by our sysadmin + disk cleaning.
Visitors.
Now trying to finish the PSF construction to let the brighter 5% running tonight, but exported disks across the country are slow!!
Gotta run home to buy a broom clean my new flat!!!
Got the referee report for the paper!! 1 week! This is great!!!!
Galapaging ...
Masking finished (weekend + train to Munich + some time here), now running the SExtractor part with the black and grey lists, this should be ready until a little later tonight, then post stamps cutting and modeling (tomorrow).
Some "playing" with STIFF (TERAPIX) to check the color images of the HCGs of the IGL study. I think I need to do some more tuning to get nice color images. For clusters (small angular diameter galaxies) it works amazingly well!
Some literature research on redshifts for our clusters ... ideas on a useful paper.
Tonight packing the few things I have here to move tomorrow morning to the new flat. Brought a large suitcase with some kitchen/bedroom/bathroom stuff to live there during the week!
Worried about Fernanda and Matheus alone in Goettingen, the mother in law has gone home ... :-(
Masking
Decided to do the masking properly. It took the whole day and may take part of the weekend too. In case I can't use the weekend for that, it will take the trip to Munich on monday.
Today checking the things for the new flat in Garching. Finally all set to the flat I rented, but I have to take everything (from kitchen to bedroom). The flat comes with the furniture, but only :-)
Complaining about X11 on Mac. Connected a monitor to the MacBook, to use a bigger screen to mask the objects ... open DS9 and put it to the "side" monitor ... it stops working!! GRRRRR You drag it back to the "main" screen, it works perfectly. Even getting the last version of it, no menus, no mouse control ... it happens the same with skycat and xterms (this you can use, but you have to go on X11/window and mark which term you wanna use now ...). On Tiger (tested with a friend) it happens almost the same. The menus appear in the main screen, even though the application is in the side one ... Apple really has to do something and make X11 works properly, after all the "full linux compatibility, is part of their marketing for science users.
Besides that, it works well. Leopard is more stable with 10.5.2 and the newer versions of X11 don't crash so often ... I got really impressed yesterday, while running the SExtractor first part in Galapagos. It was running for already 2 hours when it finished field 4 out of 8 ... I have to leave, so decided to take my chances and suspend the notebook ... got to the institute, opened it and it started at the point it stopped ... great, that suspend REALLY works!
Galapagos
Finished the absolute WCS correction and am in the SExtractor part of Galapagos. Now is doing the mask of bad objects ... since the borders are too noise, two options: 1) waste a lot of time masking those objects ONE BY ONE 2) waste processing time modeling them. I prefer option 2, since it runs while I do something else.
WCS corrections and settling things
Today the day was settling things, like arranging the space I'll be working when I'm in Goettingen and correcting the WCS of our last set of images (inside this project). All 8 fields are matched and now just a small step to get to absolute WCS correction.
Solving small things
Morning in town to solve Matheus' visa and in the afternoon somethings at home and reading the rent contract for my small flat in Garching.
Signal transmitted, message received
Paper submitted, now is wait for the referee to comment! Soon is astro-ph!
Yesterday the mother in law came back home and I would like to start expressing my disappointment with VARIG using my blog. VARIG changed her flight though Paris, but she speaks no English or French, so we asked for a "companion" to take her from the Air France plane and take her safely to the VARIG plane ... VARIG said there would be someone there, we confirmed that a couple of times and it was all suppose to be set, but ... guess what? ... there was no one there, if it wasn't for the mad of the airport we got with Air France things could have been a nightmare!!! Tried to talk to them today and do a formal complaint but after 15 minutes waiting on an international call I gave up! I'll send a letter, as if they care, but at least I put my rage for the lack of respect away!! SHAME ON VARIG!! Next time we'll travel LUFTHANSA!!
Late for friday
So!
Suggestions of the co-authors implemented, paper left and sent for "last reading". In the last reading (not finished yet) I already found several things I'll change. Some typos, but mostly re-wording (in this sense of "I think it reads better like this"). Of course this has a limit and my limit is this reading and it will be submitted on monday ANYWAY!
I wanted to prepare a color figure, not for the paper (color pages are off budget at the moment), and IRAF/COLOR works but it really sucks to set the parameters. I couldn't get to the image "as I wanted". My office mate at ESO, Joerg Dietrich (who works a lot with color images in deep fields) suggested me to use STIFF from TERAPIX. I quickly downloaded it to try on the train back to Goettingen, but there was a compilation error and no internet to google the problem. Googleing it this morning I found the problem: static libraries on MAC. But Bertin from TERAPIX already had a version solving it. Tried and it works!!
The main train activity (besides the compilation trial and reading the paper, while the computer was "working") was prepare the mosaic of MS0451 to apply GALAPAGOS on it. Matching the WCS of individual frames was the task, done 5 out of 8. Then it will come absolute WCS, PSF, bad objects identification ...
Paper text
Text editing, rephrasing, rewriting, rethinking ... also some more checking and double checking ... it's converging. I wanted it ready today so that I could submit tomorrow, but it was not possible. So it will be ready tomorrow so that it can be submitted monday (hopefully).
A nice surprise. Today I met a very good and old (since high school) friend, Claudio Melo, who just started at ESO Garching, coming from ESO Paranal. It's been a while since we met for the last time.
Paper mode: ON
So! On the paper! Got the comments from the other authors and now is the implementation of that, correction of small things, arranging figures, double checking values ...
The day today was on double checking values and arranging figures. Tomorrow is text mode (what always takes to some extra checking, just to be sure!).
Proposals sent
Weekend in Berlin was very nice. Monday we solved the problems we had to solve and did a little tourism and got back home. At night was already some time to get up to date with the e-mails on the proposals.
This morning was the deadline for ESO and we managed getting the proposal done on time.
At the end it was 2 proposals to ESO and 1 for Gemini.
