[BAA Comets] Submittings FITS images of 67P to the ESA/PSA archive

[Erik Bryssinck]

Hi Tony, Padma et all,

Awesome presentation of Padma and Tony. Once again my great thanks to Padma & Tony !!  Congratulations ! as one of the results of the workshop, It will be enormously instructive to adapt more to the needs of the proff. astronomers. A great PACA continuation and strive to constantly improve! quality improvement :)

Maybe another regarding this workshop is maybe another proposal: a while'm looking for  a way to somehow CCD images, perform automatic data reduction and subsequent astrometric calibration. (automatic CCD-image reduction can be automated by f.e. MaximDL ans other) I now use Astrometrica, which is a very good program to achieve the result, unfortunately, this is a manual operating manner: selecting images, darks, flat etc ... and then start the process astrometry. It is usually a long wait before the result is there (i use big images). Practicable then errors so that certain images may not be selected etc .. anyway, people who know use this program frequently know what I mean. and now 11 years engaged in observing comets and I have spent an enormous amount of hours in this processing. This issue begins to annoy me so that I may pull out or recorded images no astrometric calibration more output and therefore do not have a number of measurements. This is very regrettable, of course.  Due this time consuming process, i can't be busy with other things related to astronomy. That's why I'm looking for a solution to this "process" can be fully automated or at least partially. 

I had with Emanuel Jehin a while ago a privat conversation regarding this issue and he told me that they use a 'pipeline'. All they have to do is place the images in a particular folder and the computers do the rest. This is for astronomy IT specialists to put this into practice.
My question is whether there is some kind of interaction may exist which could get the amateur astronomers to certain software to automate this total processing? Or is there someone in the amateur world that can program this or make available for the benefit of amateur astronomers? I have this question once placed on the comets-ml but really got no answer. I do not know if Padma here can have some influence?

I look forward to the synthesis of the workshop! Thanks in advance !

kind regards,
Erik Bryssinck


----- Oorspronkelijk bericht -----
Van: "Tony Angel" <tony_angel_uk at hotmail.com>
Aan: "BAA Comets discussion list" <comets-disc at britastro.org>
Verzonden: Zaterdag 25 juni 2016 12:07:34
Onderwerp: Re: [BAA Comets] Submittings FITS images of 67P to the ESA/PSA archive

Hi Nick and all,

I am still getting over my trip back from Austria.  Never - if I can 
help it - will I catch the Graz to Vienna train again. The motion of it 
made me quite travel sick - which is something I have not suffered since 
a boy. Luckily I was traveling with Alan Fitzsimmons and his wife Ann 
who had a very wide brimmed hat which she used to waft me some air. 
Anyway.....

There was quite a bit of discussion on data at the workshop lead by 
Colin. There had been quite a bit of misunderstanding in this area and I 
had already included within part of one of my slides:

*Professionals use the same words as amateurs - however they do not 
always mean the same thing.*

There were also two short talks discussing the data uploading and 
standards which were helpful, but only in the sense of getting to 
understand what is meant and not the details. (I will be including some 
web links to Nick) There was quite a conversation on the words calibrate 
and calibration what they meant to different people and how the words 
were used determined their meaning :) LOL This was one of the more 
humourous episodes of the workshop.

I had explained that I took  raw images and that I applied a number of 
darks, a number of flats, a number of biases and a number of flat darks 
against these raw images to produce my final images. I then asked what 
of this do you want. The answer was everything plus a document with each 
run (Padma correct me if I am wrong) that explains how the observations 
were carried out. There was a question I did not ask which I am now 
kicking myself for to do with multiple scopes imaging at the same time.

This means that for me I will create a directory for the run. In it will 
be a document plus a directory holding the raws, a directory holding the 
darks, a directory holding the flats, a directory holding the biases, a 
directory holding the flat darks and a directory holding the final images.

I was in the process of writing a report to Nick when I saw this. I will 
mention a few things in brief.

Padma and I represented the amateur contribution - which meant I was the 
only amateur in attendance - made very welcome by all. Padma did the 
amateur community proud and over the few days was doing a very good 
selling job to the other professionals.

All presentations will be published on the net - however quite a bit of 
the information was embargoed because it has not been officially 
released - we were told to swallow cyanide pills rather than divulge  
embargoed information - the problem is that until the redacted 
presentations are published we will not know what was embargoed LOL. All 
I can say on the results is WOW. Padma being a professional herself may 
know more on what can be said now.

I will be sending my presentations to Nick with my report. I got in a 
couple of good BAA plugs. One was the youtube video that Nick made of 
his talk on Ground Base Observations, the other was to tell them that 
The Alcock Project Web pages was the place to start for the 
professionals to understand the techniques, tools and capabilities of 
the amateurs. I noticed many of them noting it down.

I had two slots. The first just a few slides along with all the other 
observers where I covered some of my observations. The second took place 
at the end of the morning session and it was running late. I am glad to 
say that this session which was about amateur capabilities and working 
with professionals went over time due to questions and comments and then 
there were about another 10 minutes of questions, so instead of 15 
minutes I had about 30 minutes. There was certainly a recognition that 
more work needs to be done on some common standards, utilities 
(including for file) for amateurs to use and help with filters both 
sloan and narrowband.

As a middle of the ladder observer I was amazed by the amount of 
interest shown in what I had done, with many genuine requests to keep in 
touch.

Nick I will be getting the rest to you soonest.

One nice surprise was that Padma presented me with a 3-D printed scale 
model of 67P.

Tony