Other activities

Involved people at OAB: Bregoli, Lolli, Montegriffo.

The computer center staff has carried on other activities during 2001. Among them:

• Participation to ESO-VLT projects. Personnel of the computer center have collaborated in the ESO-VLT VIMOS project, developing software for data reduction and real time display. This work is now completed.
• Devolopment of original software for data analysis in digital photometry in crowded fields.
  In the crowded fields digital photometry subject, the CATAPACK program (management of photometric catalogues) has been developed. This software will provide tools for the handling and management of photometrical catalogues. These tools have been designed to be simple in the use and portable to several OS (Compaq TrueUnix64, Linux, HP,Sun). These programs will be mainly used in the preparation and execution of scientific programs in the ItalFLAMES Consortium.
  The core of the package is represented by two programs: CataXcorr amd CataComb.
  • CataXcorr (Catalogues Cross Correlator) performs cross-correlations and roto-translations between an arbitrary number of catalogues. The program can map with high accuracy coordinate transformations between single coordinate systems and a common reference system, independently from any difference in scale, rotation and/or axis inversion, giving, as ouput, plate solutions and calibrations. The most interesting feature of CataXcorr is that it works in a complete automatic way. Solutions are found without any user interaction. This feature is achieved through a pattern recognition algorithm.

  • CataComb (Catalogues Combiner) is a program that allows to combine an arbitrary number of catalogues, producing an output catalog containing the desired quantities. Objects in different input catalogues can be combined following a cross-correlation table generated by CataXcorr or by identifier. The main characteristic of CataComb is flexibility: the content of the output file is entirely controlled by the user through a syntax analysis algorithm that can understand arithmetic and logical expression of any complexity.