Writing ...
Friday was the Social Activity Day of the "science directorate" at ESO. Too bad not many joined, but the 21 of us had a lot of fun visiting the salt mine at
Berchtesgaden. 2.5 hours by train, it's close to Salzburg a nice tour thru the mines and then 2.5 hours back. Good to get to know a bit better people that work close to you!
For it was quite tiresome because after all that I had still 4 hours of train to Goettingen :-)
Today. Morning solving some problems on the town and afternoon some work on the proposal we'll submit on wednesday, some preparation for a job application and some work on the KG project ... more going on tomorrow!
Labels: applications, hcg_pn, kg, life
Finally finished
So, OBs for Lick stars discussed, updated, checked in and this phase 2 is finished!
Discussion on the proposal of PNs in HCGs and text update and sending it back to CoI's.
More catalogue organizing and some conceptual work on the KG project.
Tomorrow wake up very early and go to our Social Activity Day! This is gonna be fun!
Labels: eso_preimaging, hcg_pn, hcg_ucd, hi-z morph
FIMS for Mac day
OBs from yesterday were accepted and today me and Michael Hilker selected the Lick stars we want to observe. OBs for that are ready. Tomorrow I'll review them and check them in.
More on catalogue organizing for the clusters.
The "fun" for the day was making FIMS 2.52 for MacOSX. I have got yesterday version 2.43, which is no longer accepted by ESO to prepare masks with it. New period, new version :-)
First thing was to find out the difference between the Mac and the Linux version for 2.43. Turned out to be much simpler than I thought (of course, simpler when it's done and you're only seeing what was changed, figuring out what to change is a whole other story and I'm thankful to Marco Lombardi and whoever else did this part). The modifications are all related to the standalone version of Skycat that comes with FIMS.
Basically, instead of having a pre-compiled skycat 2.7.3 for linux a Mac version of skycat 3.0 was included. Then is basically changing the version number (some places have it hardwired, some ask the system for it and they were bypassed and hardwired) and changing the "instalation" of skycat, instead of copying a file and making it executable, the whole Skycat.app directory is copied. The copy must be done with options -RL, so that the skycat link inside Skycat.app/Content/MacOS/ gets properly copied, as a link, and not that the file is copied replacing the link. If the file is copied, skycat doesn't run, because paths will become a problem.
Anyway, is a hand full of modifications, and it works. At least it seems to. Did some tests with masks and couldn't find any important difference. It should not have any, since the modifications are only to make skycat install and run, not at the FIMS plugin. Of course it requires the remark "comes as it is, use at your own risk"!!! :-))
In any case it is possible to have a MacOS version of FIMS .If I ever find out how maintains it, I'll give them the information, so that they can do a MacOS version of it.
Also some coding on the KG project.
Labels: eso_preimaging, hi-z morph, kg, Mac_hints
Masks finished
The main topic of the day was finishing the masks, by discussing the opened issues and submitting the OBs for that. That's done! Still the OBs for the Lick stars to go. I'll see that tomorrow.
Some catalogue organization and some discussion and data analysis to improve and give input to our PNs in HCGs proposal.
The digging part of the day was FIMS on MacOSX. Got the version from Marco Lombardi that he and some colleagues have managed to run on MacOSX 10.4 some time ago.
Problem, it doesn't run on MacOSX 10.5 (Leopard) ... looking carefully that was a problem with FSMOSAIC, that the binary was not running on 10.5 ... then I started digging on a version of FSMOSAIC to be compiled. Found version 1.0 (2002), but I knew that a lot of improvement happened until version 1.3 (2007-2008), probably including the FORS2 new CCD mosaic and surely including FORS1 new CCD mosaic ... then Marco gave me version 1.2, that allowed me to open non-FORS images, old-FORS images, but was giving an error message and collapsing with FORS2 images that were already processed with FSMOSAIC ...
Then my old friend Sandra Castro from ESO's Software Development Division got me version 1.3 with Carlo Izzo (could have got to him directly if I know he was the responsible) and it has work! Now I have a version of FIMS that work on a Mac!!! The problem now is that it's version 2.43 and the last version is 2.52 ... and P2PP (the OBs preparation task) checks for the right version ... so I still have to see the differences between the two version and update my Mac version accordingly ... but that will be done some other time! In any case I may have a version of FIMS running on MacOSX any time soon ...
Labels: eso_preimaging, hi-z morph, Mac_hints
A little bit of this, a little bit of that ...
During the weekend I finished the masks. The OBs are not ready yet, there are some open issues that will be discussed tomorrow (there was not time today).
Today I got a train one hour earlier to get in Garching on time for the Faculty meeting (at 11:00 AM). It was OK. Nothing major, but is good to be there and be up to date. Just that I had to wake up at 4:30 AM ... :-)
Then more OBs preparations for the masks. Some proposal discussion (next proposal, PNs in HCG, this is gonna be very cool). Then some more catalogues organization and update (as it was also done on the train). Then some more coding on the KG project. It's advancing!!! Now sleep that I'm broken ...
Labels: eso_preimaging, hcg_pn, hi-z morph, kg
Almost there
Photometry and new catalogue done. Prioritization of objects done. First mask done. The last mask is almost done, then finding charts, prepare the OBs and check them in ... weekend will do for that.
Monday train at 6 to Munich. Faculty meeting at 11:00 ... hmmmmmm
Labels: eso_preimaging
One step behind ...
Mask for one of the groups prepared, then it was time for the second group ... then the selected objects catalogue, already with a priority index considering magnitude and color, turned out to be VERY contaminated. It should be a problem with DAOPHOT SHARP parameter ... because there were too many galaxies and we are looking for point sources.
That took a while to try to fix and it was not possible, so coming back to basics and redoing the whole photometry ... on friday.
Labels: eso_preimaging
Masks keep going ...
Yes, mask production keeps going, and will finish on Thursday. Nothing else :-)
Labels: eso_preimaging
Mask day
Preparing the masks, getting the hand of FIMS ...
Labels: eso_preimaging
Short day
The day today was kind of short ...
Some work on the masks for the VLT observation and some personal issues ... not much.
Tomorrow it keeps going.
Labels: eso_preimaging
More problems, but different ones.
Today part of the day was used to solve some "medical" problems.
The other part was used to install SKYCAT on UBUNTU, what turned out to be a nightmare!!! I need skycat to work, but in this moment to use FIMS. Since FIMS doesn't run on MacOSX, the masks will be prepared in Linux ... at the end, after a lot of struggle, including some "library rename" that Ubuntu did, I managed.
The hint is install tcl and tk devel and install ALL the other packages that come in the tcltk tarball you download from ESO website. I had to install them one by one since the installation script fails for some weird reason ... then you configure and compile SKYCAT.
At the end an old "stand alone" version of skycat comes with FIMS :-/ But skycat is necessary anyway also to prepare the masks. Working with skycat/FIMS and an additional skycat helps a lot in the mask preparation since you have access to the objects catalogue without including slits :-)
Now I can prepare the masks ...
Labels: eso_preimaging, life
Solving problems?
So! First thing in the morning, talked to Piero Rosati (ESO) about the FORS2/MXU preimaging preparation and so on.
At the end there is no recipe, but his experience in the topic tells that the OFFSET=wcs IMCOMBINED frame must work (after all that's what the manual says and several people should have used that without problems), or we could reduce the image, anyway we want and then put the original image header (as long as the objects are in the same pixels), as I did for the preparation of our last run in december.
Joining this with some of Marina Rejkuba's suggestions, the approach I took was shift two of the images to the central one and combine them with no offsets. Comparing the headers, they are the same, just minor changes that IRAF does when processes the images. Nothing changed on the pixel information or on WCS information. So it must work.
Recipe for preimaging reduction for FORS2/MXU
- fsmosaic the individual frames (that come debiased and flatfielded)
- shift them to the central one (using imshift, imalign, ... whatever you like, as long as the header information is maintained)
- combine them with IMCOMBINE (I know it maintains the header information)
and it's done!
Then, after lunch I had a express course with Bodo Ziegler about the mask preparation with FIMS and it's caveats (he's one of the experts on that).
Then I spent most of the day preparing the catalogues and priorities for the mask preparation (which has to be done under linux, even though Piero commented that Marco Lombardi modified to run under MacOSX, of course I'll be contacting him soon enough).
Also finished matching literature and my catalogue for one of the clusters, but done as buffer flushing while preparing the catalogues for the masks.
Also some improvement on the KG code, but not much.
The final touch was receiving a confirmation e-mail that the GMOS mask has arrived in Chile and that we needed to change something or if the program could be activated. So activated it is!
Tomorrow, mask preparation!!!
Labels: eso_preimaging, hcg_ucd, hi-z morph, kg
More on several things ...
Today the three tasks kept going.
1- Pre-imaging. ESO pipeline is available, now just have to learn how to use it ... also talked to some people at ESO about proper way to do the reduction for the pre-imaging. Some good suggestions, specially from Marina Rejkuba, but one last person will be asked tomorrow, Piero Rosati who has experience in the GOODS spectroscopy.
The problem is. FIMS creates the mask and is transforms angular units to pixel and pixel to millimeters on the FORS2 focal plane, so that the mask can be cut. They strongly advise that no modifications should be done to the image properties or headers, since this can alter the geometrical transformations and corrections for the focal plane positions.
So images, debiased and flatfielded (as they come) should be simply combined with IMCOMBINE using OFFSET = wcs ... the problem is that this procedure creates an image that is larger than the original by the shifted pixels ... Is it still FIMS acceptable??? No one knows, because no one takes chances!! Will I take chances?? NO WAY!!!
I'll ask Piero how he's done that before, otherwise I'll just do it "the hard way". I'll talk about it tomorrow, after I have an answer!
2- Matching catalogues of our clusters (literature X my catalogue) BY EYE, since the shifts are not linear, one is like a rotation and there are some false matches. The other is sort of random, so matches are a bit doubtful, on the other hand, this is the catalogue that has more information ... like is hard!
3- Code for the KG project advancing a lot! Technicalities and syntax seems to be under control ... Now the fun part! MATH!
Labels: eso_preimaging, hcg_ucd, hi-z morph, kg
Matching
So!
3 tasks for the day.
1- Get the pre-imaging reduction going ... got it but I don't like it. The imaging pipeline for FORS2 will be made public tomorrow or thursday (inside information). Then I'll try with it. In any case tomorrow I'll discuss the points I'm in doubt with the experts.
2- Match literature with our objects. That's a night mare. You get the coordinates, some objects match, some are close (but with random shifts), some are far off ... which can you trust? Are the matched really matched? Or chance just a chance match? The only good match was from a paper of our own group, where the shift is linear and I had access to the original image (FORS with WCS offsets). Tomorrow I'll think about it.
The main problem is that two out of three literature sources published their coordinates as distances to the center of the field (c'mon!!! publish real astrometry, or just don't publish anything!). You get their catalogue and their center, calculate the coordinates ... and nothing, nothing matches ...
NED has coordinates for the same objects, the ones I said that some matches some doesn't ...
3- KG project advanced a lot! Code is going. There's some work to do, but it's going!
Labels: hcg_ucd, hi-z morph, kg
Back from vacations
Since this is about life also ... let's talk about it.
Vacations in Croatia, no computer, no papers, no books related to work, not even mobile phone! Just family, beach and sun! The hotel's food was OK, not very good, there were some dishes that you just couldn't eat ... deserts also were not their strong point, there was actually a recurrent cake ... EVERY MEAL :-)
Drinks, not first level, but drinkable. After all it was an "all inclusive" week!
Weather was very good! We couldn't travel around because Matheus got his first tooth, and that means some fever and a lot of complaining because it hurts and itches! So long time in the car was not his mood for the week! But he enjoyed the beach (pebbles not sand), even though the water was too cold for him. Only in the last day he "agreed" on getting in the water for about 10-15 minutes. The rest of the time he had fun in an inflatable pool with see water that we left everyday on the sun to be warmed before we get there :-)
It was good and relaxing. A bad point about the hotel is the "mobility". If you have any sort of mobility problem (needs a wheelchair or has a baby carriage) it's not the best place to go. There are stairs everywhere and no elevators and mostly no ramps.
The plane trips are always a problem. Delayed flights to go and to come back and damaged luggage. Now I have to write a letter asking to be refund for my damaged suitcase ... and that takes time ...
Back home a very sad new. My grandmother passed away the night before. She was going to meet Matheus in December ... now it's dealing with sadness working.
Work! Back to Garching! Pre-imaging for the two groups, so the sooner we prepare the masks, the better!!
Also matching my objects with the literature ... not a very simple task ... no one measures positions properly (I guess me neither) so matching data is a nightmare.
Also some programing on the KG project. I'm back to basics ... let's see where do I get!
Tomorrow an extra point to be worked ... new proposal!
Labels: hcg_ucd, hi-z morph, kg, life
