FlipperPhoto

The UCB Filippenko Group's Photometry Pipeline

This repository houses the code used by UC Berkeley's Filippenko Group to autonomously produce a database of rough (not publication-quality) photometry of all sources detected in all images we've ever obtained with the Nickel and KAIT telescopes at Lick Observatory.

-2017, I.Shivvers & T.Tu

Steps:

• We start with the flat-fielded and bias-subtracted images.
  • This code was built with the Nickel and KAIT telescopes in mind, but we have endeavored to make it easy to update for other instruments.
• Update WCS information using astrometry.net.
• Identify objects and perform photometry using source extractor.
• Cross-match to calibrated APASS catalog to place that photometry on an absolute scale.
• Insert result into a MySQL database for easy querying.
  • This database has been interfaced with the Berkeley SNDB

Usage:

• Once installed, this code provides the flipprun command, which works well to run one file at a time. For example:

  flipprun -o /path/to/output/folder -t kait /path/to/input/file.fits

• This repo also includes two example bash scripts, which provide the best way to run on large sets of files. (The ''recursive'' option in flipprun fails on large folders.) For example:

  ./FPKaitFolder.sh /path/to/input/folder/ /path/to/output/folder/

Installation:

1. Clone this repository.
2. Verify that you have both sextractor (Source Extractor) and solve-field (astrometry.net) installed.
3. Create a file called local.py in FlipperPhot/flipp/conf/.
4. Within this file you should re-define anything you need to from global_settings.py. (The contents of local.py over-ride those of global_settings.py.)
5. For example, you will likely want to re-define the DB_URL variable, which points to the database where you want to store the output (see here). The database must already exist, but FlipperPhot will automatically create the tables it needs.
6. Other likely changes: 1. SEXTRACTORPATH: the path to the sextractor executable. 1. SOLVEFIELDPATH: the path to the solve-field executable. 1. ASTROMETRYCONF: the path to the solve-field configuration file, which usually contains system-specific info.
7. Within the root folder of FlipperPhot, run pip install . to install.
8. Now you should have the command flipprun in your path.
9. Type flipprun -h for information on how to run it.