Introducing MetroPSF – a program for ensemble photometry

[Maxim Usatov]

Thanks, Nick. With those automatic reports one has to be careful, as you might need an ensemble covering a wide range of magnitudes which will raise uncertainties. Perhaps, we need to add an option to fine-tune the range of magnitudes in the ensemble per each target automatically during automatic reporting? 

On the timestamps: I’ve just tested a few FITS on my Windows 10 machine and don’t see any issues. Could you please send me the FITS file for testing? Very odd.

Max

[Eric Watkins]

Max,

It appears you have developed an interesting and useful piece of software.  Does it have the capability to automatically perform  photometry on  a time sequence series of images, if so can it follow the motion of the asteroid or comet through out the sequence.  It’s the lack of this facility with Astrometrica that I miss when producing photometry on a time series run of images.  Having to do photometry one at a time of a run of what could be several hours is time consuming.

Best wishes, Eric

[Maxim Usatov]

Thank you, Eric. It can process the whole folder of input images and report in batch, but reports are generated only for objects from the AAVSO VSX database. I’ve never tried it on comets. If you could send me a series of FITS with a comet – three is enough – I could try to see if I can get it reporting.

[Eric Watkins]

Max,

Though I mentioned comets asteroids may be more appropriate in my case,  I’ll dig out examples of both.

Thanks,

Eric

[Nick James]

Here is an example file which gives the JD zero date: http://www.nickdjames.com/Transfers/ngc6888_n_solved.fit.gz

[Maxim Usatov]

Nick, I took exposure start from the “JD” field in the FITS, never looked at DATE-OBS. MetroPSF now looks at DATE-OBS as well. I have uploaded the fixed 0.15 here:

http://trafyx.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/metropsf-0.15.zip

Thanks for pointing this out.

Max

[Paul Bouchier]

Hi Max,

First thank you for producing this software it is potentially just what I need.  I have installed the latest version and have got to the last stage of the process and trying to find a regression model when the above message is reported.  Looking at the metropsf console the following is being reported.

** On entry to DLASCLS parameter number  5 had an illegal value

 ** On entry to DLASCLS parameter number  4 had an illegal value

A screen shot is attached.  Any clues would be appreciated.

Many thanks

Paul 

[Maxim Usatov]

Hi Paul,

Thank you very much for your feedback. This type of error occurs if the input to the linear regression function has a blank value, which is unexpected. This could be, for example, if the star catalog returns a blank magnitude for some reason, or the ensemble has zero stars (too limited). Is there an option for you to try a different star catalog? How many stars are in your ensemble? Please note no screenshot was attached.

Max

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