Catalogues
Photometry is done ... matching spectroscopic targets is done ... now rebuilding the catalogues, specially rematching the new photometry with the GALAPAGOS catalogue and select additional objects for surface and CAS analysis.
Also doing it all again for the remodeled cluster. Gotta finish that until tomorrow morning ...
Tomorrow evening we're flying to Croatia for a week. VACATIONS!!!
One simple rule "no papers, work books or laptops allowed" :-) Sometimes, when to researchers go out on vacation, you have to be hard on the rules!
Labels: hi-z morph, life
Photometry
Redoing the photometry. Better and safer! I like the results I'm getting.
Tomorrow the last clusters and then it goes on ...
Labels: hi-z morph
Now it works!
Photometry. Back to the basics! Read manuals and commented manuals ... thanks to a good text from Caitlin Casey about "
Optimizing SExtractor parameters for Subaru MACS fields" I've got some good hints and managed to get to a set of parameters that works well in our case.
Redid the photometry for one of the clusters, checked it and got satisfied with the result. Now is redoing for another 2 clusters which I think the photometry could be improved. Of course it's not a plain application since for one of them images are not coming from the same instrument ... but it will be done tomorrow.
Then I have to find out the objects that are not in the first photometry and do surface modeling and CAS measurements.
Also select our spectroscopic targets and also prepare the photometric tables for photo-z and kcorrection.
Forgot to mention that on monday I've got the pre-imaging for our first group in VLT. No time for it now, but we still have time until mid september.
BTW, got my driver's license today! Page turned ...
Labels: hcg_ucd, hi-z morph, life, photometry
Now I can come back to science!
SOOOOOOO!! Now I can come back to science.
Today I did the practical exam for my driver's license and approved it! So that's over. It was worth the amount of hours of driving lessons I took ... tomorrow to the city-hall to run the paperwork.
Now I can come back to science, do my photometry, my structural parameters, thing about the KG project ... until friday. Saturday a week of vacations to flush the buffers.
About photometry. It's complicated. Can't make SExtractor find all the objects I need. The only way it does it gives crapy results on the photometry. So I'm back to basics. Reading the manual. Let's see if I can find what I need.
Labels: hi-z morph, life
All at once ...
So! Long time! Last week was crazy and this week is still being like that.
By parts. Driver's license: when to my driving lesson. The details of driving in Germany are quite different from driving in Brazil, or mostly anywhere in the world. A mix of ultra-patience and rush (while you may have to wait long behind a slow bike on the street - nothing against that - you're advised to drive as close to the allowed limit as possible, for the sake of the traffic flow ...). Also the exam is EXTREMELY hard and some faults end your exam at the moment. Anyway, my first lesson was a disaster, then I'm having lessons daily to be able to approve this test. The main point is when you're concentrated, it's OK, when driving goes to "background mode", then it's over ...
Also helping a friend on a very difficult situation. Her mother had cancer, but was treated and was "under control", even though the doctors could not quite find the root of it. Wednesday night she went to the hospital. Thursday they found a pretty bad picture, then we had to help our friend on finding a flight home ASAP (we did it for last saturday). And on friday, much sooner than the doctors expected, she passed away, what meant a lot of emotional support for our friend.
Now work: back on trying to make SExtractor work on this particular cluster. Problem is when it finds some objects, it detects them with a terrible deblending. When you improve the deblending reducing the "BACK_SIZE", not only the photometry gets affected, but some of the objects detected before (as center of the large composed object) is not detected ... gotta fine tune it yet. Suggestions are welcome!
Labels: hi-z morph, life
Photometry
Yesterday was a day dedicated to my theoretical exam for my german driver's license, in which I was approved. Even though the total lack of information. From the beginning. As I have my valid brazilian driver's license, I only have to do the exams, not the courses for the german license. But you need to start the process before you're in the country for 3 years (this law will change this semester).
Here you need a "driver school", even if you're not taking the courses. Bought the books and questionary to study in english, but I was not told I had to pay extra for the exam in english (not that I would do it differently, but I wouldn't be surprised just before the exam). Also found out that I have one year to complete it all (theoretical and practical exams) and not 1 year for the theoretical and another year for the practical. Yes ... it took me that long to take this exam (pregnancy, child birth, work in a different city ... a lot of work ...) anyway. Now I have to rush and do it all before next friday (29.08). So tomorrow some driving lessons to learn how to do the exam.
Work now! Today I noticed that some important objects in one of the clusters are missing, including some to which we have spectroscopy. So I'm "recovering" them by redoing the photometry in a way I can get them all. Not there yet.
Labels: hi-z morph, life
Calmer day
Today a calmer day.
Organizing the tables for the cluster project. Matching the spectroscopic targets in the photometric catalogue and so on.
Also studying for my drivers license exam on monday ... that is really hard!!!
Labels: hi-z morph, life
Mask sent ... again
Basically a day with redoing the Gemini mask ... first finding stars that are bright enough but not too much, what gets into the range of our science objets ... a bad thing, I don't wanna loose candidates!!
Besides that some discussion on the code for KG project.
Now train home!
Labels: gemini_preimaging, kg
The mask is back ... haunting me
So! News of the end of the day, I need to change the alignment stars of the Gemini mask, what means rethinking the whole setup ... it's pulling my feet during the night!
The new version of the last cluster is running, after PSF construction.
The rerun of the failed models is still going.
Organizing the tables to the joint analysis with the velocity fields. Matching objects, checking goodness of fits ...
Studying to my theoretical test for the drivers license on monday, all set, now I need to finish studying. This is happening for a while already, but now is the last rush ...
A very nice lunch with Magda Arnaboldi (ESO) and Ortwin Gerhard (MPE) and a discussion on how can we join our techniques. A proposal is being drafted already for next period.
Basically that, a busy day that ended with nice weather and a good bike ride to take the rust away.
Labels: gemini_preimaging, hcg_pn, hi-z morph, life
Back to clusters
Preparations to rerun one of the clusters in Galapagos with new pixel size (WCS matching and absolute correction, bad objects mask, ...) and correcting modeling errors in the other clusters to close this analysis.
Also writing two small routines to convert coordinates from sexagesimal to decimal and vice versa from a list and print it the way I want it to.
Labels: hi-z morph
Mask sent
Mask finished and sent. No issues about shrinking or not. Sent the mask made over the i' image and they have the i' image, so they'll make it work.
WCS matching of a field and a very nice discussion about our nice surprise code, let's call if from now on as KG project.
A lot to do, not enough time ... train was not very productive today.
Labels: gemini_preimaging, hi-z morph, kg
Finished?
So, is the mask finished? Almost!
Did everything, Rodrigo Carrasco (Gemini) replied and told me the "secret" that is not so clear in the help page, improved the object selection with help of Iskren Georgiev (AIfA), one of the co-I's, took me the whole day to make things work properly and to finish the mask.
The software doesn't work exactly in real time. You should prepare things first in IRAF, then include somehow info in the header, then find out how to deal with it's automatic way of putting slits ... each step take a while and a lot of "re-doing" ... until I finished the mask.
Great, before sending, let's check in the other image (different filter) to see how it looks like ... and it seems that this other image is a bit "shrunk" ... yes, slits on the right side of the image appear at the right of the objects and at the left side, at the left of the objects ... not much, but enough to look light, something we really need, since the objects are quite faint.
In summary, I asked Rodrigo about it and I'll have to wait for his reply ... of course something would go wrong ...
Meanwhile let's enjoy the olympic games ...
Labels: gemini_preimaging
Still on masks ...
Yes, the whooooole day on that.
First WCS correction (FORS images are ALWAYS wrong) and it "almost" matched the Gemini images (also WRONG). Since I can't correct the Gemini ones, I had to treat them for small objects photometry, matched the two photometric catalogues, hunted the lost objects, and got a final candidates catalogue.
Processed it as Gemini suggests (a mixture of codes and programs that the way I don't like) and put it into their mask program (the one that doesn't accept "on the fly" slits, only catalogued ones).
Defined "priorities" AND NOTHING. There's still no way to display the slits on screen!!! Looked at their help page and there was suppose to be a button that says "PLOT SLITS", but it's missing in my version ... either they took it away and didn't update the help page, or it "felt" when I downloaded it ...
Summary: gotta finish that by tomorrow to be processed on time, wanted to have finished that on tuesday, so it was an almost "LOST" week (not the series) and I have other projects to take care ... and they are URGENT!
Mails to some potential saviours (Eduardo Cypriano, experienced Gemini observer, and Rodrigo Carrasco, GMOS-S responsible). Let's see who can help me ...
Labels: gemini_preimaging
Masks
Day in between pediatrician and installing the software to do the masks for GMOS and all it's requirements.
After that I could notice how bureaucratic it is, at least the way I'm using it.
Tomorrow I'll try it again, and see if I get less error messages ...
Labels: gemini_preimaging, life
Spectroscopic candidates ...
So, selecting spectroscopic candidates.
We have the Gemini pre-imaging, but also some VLT imaging of this particular group, and I had first to calibrate them and then select the candidates.
Now comes the mask part.
Labels: gemini_preimaging
Nice weekend, let's start the week
Weekend in Munich was great. Family, old friends and quite sunny days.
Friday Fernanda and Matheus arrived. On saturday morning we met Claudio Melo, now at ESO-Garching, how's a "teen-age" friend (we studied together from high-school until M.Sc.) and is married to Lucivanda (that was on a business trip), how's a childhood friend (we met when we were 5 year old :-)). Then we went to the park so that Matheus and his daughter Luisa could play.
Then walk around Munich and in the afternoon we met Eduardo Cypriano (UCL), Elysandra Figueiredo (Open Univ.) and Dimitri Gadotti (MPA) (same gang as thursday night) and they all got to know Fernanda and Matheus.
It was great to see old friends.
Dimitri and Eduardo comment they read my blog sometimes ... eeeee some one else besides mom reads it :-) Eduardo complained that information is too obvious, sometimes, like "today I worked on flatfield". That's more or less the idea, if I spent the day doing flatfield, then flatfield it is :-) Also good to know "when I did what". Edu, keep reading the blog!!!!! Actually I'll need you tomorrow or wednesday (when I finish flatfielding :-) ) to get information about the mask production on Gemini.
Sunday we had a calm day and a safe trip back home.
Now today! Work!
Trying to review the nice "surprise" code. Complicated task, but I'll get there.
Also working on the Gemini pre-imaging and trying to solve the "Lick Stars" issue. Got a reply from Thomas Puzia (Herzberg), who observed this kind of star with VLT already. Let's see how my co-I's can implement his solution.
Labels: hcg_ucd, kg, life
Pre-imaging
Gathering of yesterday made today a bit of a "slow" day!
Anyway. We've already got the pre-imaging from Gemini, so now express reduction, candidates identification and mask designing to increase the observability of this project.
Also solve one more issue in my cool coding. My C is kind of rusty and old fashioned ... too old fashioned for the needs of this code. So I'm doing a brute-force version of the code in IDL to work on a controlled sample, then I'll port it to C with help of some expert friends.
Probably I just polished the last problem. Now is checking how it looks in C.
To finish the week, today Fernanda and Matheus arrived here and we're gonna spend the weekend in Munich, including a new gathering with the PhD gang :-)
Labels: gemini_preimaging, hcg_ucd, kg, life
