slotmerge

Name

slotmerge – merge multiple CCD amplifier images from slotmode data

Usage

slotmerge images outimages outpref geomfile (clobber) logfile (verbose) (debug)

Parameters

images

String. List of input images including, if necessary, absolute or relative paths to the data. Data can be provided as a comma-separated list, or a string with a wildcard (e.g. ‘images=S20061210*.fits’), or a foreign file containing an ascii list of image filenames. For ascii list option, the filename containing the list must be provided preceded by a ‘@’ character, e.g. 'images=@listoffiles.lis‘.

outimages

String. A list of images. Data can be provided as a comma-separated list, or a string with a wildcard (e.g. ‘outimages=rS20061210*.fits’), or a foreign file containing an ascii list of image filenames. For the ascii list option, the filename containing the list must be provided preceded by a ‘@’ character, e.g. 'outimages=@listoffiles.lis‘. This list must be of the same size as the images argument list. If the output is intended for a different directory the absolute or relative path must be supplied with the file name. .e

outpref

String. If the outpref string is non-zero in length and contains characters other than a blank space, it will override any value of the outimages argument. Output file names will use the name list provided in the images argument, but adding a prefix to each output file defined by outpref. An absolute or relative directory path can be included in the prefix, e.g. ‘outpref=/Volumes/data/b’.

geomfile

String. This is the name of an ascii table that contains parameters describing the relational focal plane geometry between CCDs of a detector array. Working examples are stored in /iraf/extern/salt/salticam/data/SALTICAMgeom.dat and /iraf/extern/salt/pfis/data/PFISgeom.dat. The table is used both to rotate and translate CCD images with respect to each other before stitching them together within a single image. An example of the table format follows:

# PFIS CCD Geometry data
# Date    gap xshift(1) yshift(1) rot(1) xshift(3) yshift(3) rot(3)
2004-01-01  90  -14.53   1.84    0.0931    2.35      0.84   -0.0337

Lines beginning with the character ‘#’ are ignored as comments. The date refers to the day after which the geometry is valid, but this is currently an unused parameter. ‘gap’ refers to the idealized distance between neighburing CCDs. Note that there are two CCD gaps in the RSS mosaic which are not of identical size, but there is only one gap parameter in the goemtry file. ‘xshift’ refers to an additional translation performed on the CCD after the gap has been introduced. Regardless of the instrument, CCD number 2 is always considered the reference CCD. This is the right-most CCD in the SALTICAM 2x1 mosiac and the middle CCD in the RSS 3x1 mosaic. The reference CCD is neither translated or rotated. All other CCDs are translated and rotated relative to the reference CCD. xshift(1) refers to the translation in the x-direction of the first CCD and xshift(3) refers to the translation in the x-direction of the third CCD. xshift is used to create CCD gaps of differing size according to on-sky calibration of the CCD geometry. ‘yshift’ refers to a CCD translation in the y-direction. gap, xshift and yshift are all recorded in raw, unbinned pixel units. ‘rot’ refers to a CCD rotation relative to the reference CCD with units of degrees.

(clobber)

Hidden boolean. If clobber=’yes’, files contained within the working directory will be overwritten by newly created files of the same name. The default is clobber=’no’.

logfile

String. Name of an ascii file for storing log and error messages written by the task. The file may be new, or messages can also be appended to a pre-existing file.

(verbose)

Hidden Boolean. If verbose=’no’, log messages will be suppressed from both the terminal and the log file. Error messages are excluded from this rule.

debug

Boolean. If debug=y, will give more debug information if an error occurs (use this option to gather information when reporting a bug).

Description

Raw SALT data is stored in FITS files using separate file extensions for each amplifier image. Each CCD has two readout amplifiers and each detector has mulitiple CCDs. Hence a single RSS exposure is stored in 2x3 FITS extensions and single SALTICAM image is stored in 2x2 FITS extensions. SLOTMERGE combines a set of amplifier images, obtained during the same exposure, into a single mosaiced image, stored in a single extension of the output FITS file. Slotmode data can also have multiple exposures in a single FITS files and each of these exposures will be reduced to a single extension of the output FITS file.

The primary extension of the output file is a direct copy of the primary HDU in the input file. The majority of primary header keywords are also propagated into the image extensions of the output file. While this results in repetition of the keywords within the file, this procedure does improve the efficiency of extracting mosaiced data into 1- or 0-dimensional form.

SLOTMERGE transforms the data only according to integer, linear x- and y-shifts. The shifts are provided in the geomfile. The task will create a larger image array and then embed each of the amplifiers into the array according to the provided information. Although rotation information is provided in the geomfile, no rotation is currently applied to the data. The shifts are geomtric shifts calculated for the data and may not provide true astrometric positions.

Examples

1. To mosaic a sequence of RSS image:

   --> slotmerge images='/Volumes/data1/bxpP*.fits' outimages=''
   outpref='/Volumes/data2/m' geomfile='PFISgeom.dat'
   clobber='yes' logfile='salt.log' verbose='yes'

Time and disk requirements

Raw, unbinned RSS images have sizes exceeding 100 MB each. On a linux machine with 2.8 Ghz processor and 2 Gb of RAM, one FITS file containing two 4x4 binned slotmode exposures with a total of 1124x36 pixels can be processed in 0.09 sec.

Bugs and limitations

No distortion correction is performed on the amplifier images before they are mosaiced. Image distortion has yet to be calibrated or monitored on the SALT instruments. Currently not designed to handle rotations in the image geometry. SLOTMERGE is also not able to handle sub-pixel shifts.

Send feedback and bug reports to salthelp@saao.ac.za

See also

saltclean iraf.images.immatch.geotran