Database Functions


gcat                        -- get catalog at location
gimages                     -- get images at location
gstar                       -- get star statistics
extract                     -- extract average vectors from catalogs
mextract                    -- extract measurement vectors from catalogs
imstats                    -- plot image statistics
imextract                   -- extract image vectors from database
lcat                        -- list catalogs in display region
cmatch                      -- match two catalogs

There are a variety of other commands which directly refer to the photometry database. Some of these functions extract data of various types from the database, others perform more complex plotting operations. The commands listed above are those which simply extract data from the database. The first three list information relevant to a specific RA, DEC location on the sky: gcat (RA) (DEC) lists the catalog at the specified location and places the name in the variable $CATNAME, gimages (RA) (DEC) lists all images which overlap the specified location, gstars (RA) (DEC) (RADIUS) lists data about the stars within a specified radius of the specified location (all numbers above are given in decimal degrees). Similarly, lcat lists the catalogs in the region. Imstats lists statistics about each image

The next three commands extract a specific piece of information from the photometry database and places it in a vector. First, extract will extract average values for each star and place it in a vector. Next, mextract will extract measurement values for each star and place it in a vector: as a result a single star may have multiple entries in the measurement vectors. Finally, imextract will extract image statistics into vectors (not yet implemented).


catalog                    -- plot catalog stars
cgrid                      -- plot sky coordinate grid
cplot                      -- plot vectors in sky coordinates
czplot                     -- plot scaled vectors in sky coordinates
images                     -- plot image boxes
imdense                    -- image density plot
lcurve                     -- plot lightcurve for a star
pcat                       -- plot catalog boundaries
region                     -- define sky region for plot
resid                      -- plot residuals
simage                     -- plot stars in an image

There are two types of database plotting functions: those that display or refer to the spatial charateristics of the data and those that refer to other types of charatersitics, such as the time domain. The graphics window 0 is reserved for all plots of objects on the sky. The command region defines the current sky coordinates for plots in graphic window 0. The command pcat plots the outline of all photometry database files which are within the currently defined region (and by default, only those with data). images plots the outline of the images in the image database, while imdense shows the number of images at a location by randomly spacing dots within the boundary of the images. The command cgrid draws a grid in celestial coordinates on the for the current region.

The most complex, but also one of the most useful command is catalog, which plots the positions of stars in the photometry database (and others) on the sky. There are many options to this command. One set allows the user to plot stars from the photometry database (the default), from the HST GSC, or from an ASCII text file with RA, DEC, and Mag in specified columns. If the ASCII file has a fixed number of bytes per line, the data can be more quickly loaded. The size of the points may be scaled by the star magnitude, by the number of observations of the star, or by the number of missing datapoints for the star. In addition, points may be plotted only if they land in specified magnitude ranges, or with specified numbers of measurements, or missed measurements. Also, objects may be plotted only if they have a specified Average.code, so that only asteroids or only perfect stars may be plotted. The plotted vectors may be saved, if desired, and the source catalog epoch may be specified as different from J2000 (only valid for ASCII data).

Several other commands relate to non-spatial charateristics of images and stars. lcurve will plot a light curve for all stars within some radius of a point. resid plots the photometry residuals for a particular region file.

Some Examples

we need some better and more relevant examples

Figure: Map of the entire sky, and images added to database.

Fig. 1 shows a map of the entire sky, and the location of the images currently in the database. This picture was made with the following commands: (output is not shown)


status: region 0 0 90 gls
status: cgrid
status: style -lw 2 -c red 
status: images
status: ps
In this example, on the graphics window, the image boxes are shown in red. The user now has the possiblitiy of using the cursor command to narrow in on a specific region, and so forth.

Figure: Map of the sky in polar project, and images added to database.

Fig. 1 shows a map of the entire sky, and the location of the images currently in the database from a polar project. This picture was made with the following commands: (output is not shown)


status: region 0 0 90 zea
status: cgrid
status: style -lw 2 -c red 
status: images
status: ps
In this example, on the graphics window, the image boxes are shown in red. The user now has the possiblitiy of using the cursor command to narrow in on a specific region, and so forth.

Figure: Comparison between HST GSC and photometry database astrometry.

Fig. 3 shows an example comparison of the photometry database star positions and the HST Guide Star Catalog star positions. The crosses are all objects in the photometry database, while the boxes are only the stars identified as USNO stars. The circles are the stars from the HST GSC. The size of both points is a function of brightness. This plot was made with the following commands (starting from the previous image):


status: cursor  (typed 1 on region of interest)
1 137.097858 22.698305
q 137.097858 22.698305
status: region $R1 $D1 0.2 TAN
status: cgrid
status: box
status: style -pt 0 
status: gcat $R1 $D1 
  0 n2230/1951.cpt *
status: style -pt 2; cat -all -m 12 18
status: style -pt 1; cat -all -m 12 18 -ID $USNO
status: style -pt 7; cat -all -m 12 18 -g



Eugene Magnier
2001-03-20