[Aavso-photometry] IRAF photcal -- worth it?

[bedient at hawaii.rr.com]

I've never tried.  We use outboard Fortran and C++ routines written by Karen Meech to do the transformations and extinction coefficients, like you are using perl and Excel.  I figure if she went to the trouble to write them, they must be easier than photcal.  There are many ways to skin the IRAF cat, though.

Jim


----- Original Message -----
From: Michael Koppelman <lolife at bitstream.net>
Date: Sunday, February 6, 2005 6:52 am
Subject: [Aavso-photometry] IRAF photcal -- worth it?

> Since I am pretty comfortable with IRAF I thought maybe I'd start 
> using 
> photcal to do my transformation coefficients. Chuck P. has 
> mentioned 
> this in the past. A quick look at the help terrified me:
> 
> --> help photcal
> digiphot.photcal:
>        mkapfile - Prepare  aperture corrections file from 
> apphot/daophot output
>       mkcatalog - Type in a standard star catalog or observations 
> file        mkimsets - Prepare an image set file for input to 
> (mk)(n)obsfile    mk(n)obsfile - Prepare an oservations file from 
> apphot/daophot output
>      mkphotcors - Prepare the photometric corrections files
>          apfile - Prepare an aperture corrections file from a 
> text file
>         obsfile - Prepare an observations file from a text file
> 
>        mkconfig - Prepare a configuration file
>       chkconfig - Check the configuration file for grammar and 
> syntax 
> errors
>       fitparams - Compute the parameters of the transformation 
> equations         evalfit - Compute the standard indices by 
> evaluating the fit
>       invertfit - Compute the standard indices by inverting the fit
> 
> This looks nightmarishly complex. Currently I use IRAF to do the 
> ccd 
> reductions and photometry and then just use perl and Excel to 
> compute 
> my coefficients and do transformations on observations.
> 
> Do I really want to go through the pain of learning photcal? I 
> reread 
> Chuck's Zen of IRAF on the subject and it seems doable but...
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> Cheers,
> Michael Koppelman
> http://www.lolife.com/astronomy/
> 
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