Z Knight W.M. Keck Observatories Research Supervisor: Al Conrad Home Institution: University of Hawai'i at Hilo

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Z KnightW.M. Keck ObservatoriesResearch
Supervisor Al ConradHome Institution
University of Hawai'i at Hilo

• A Graphical User Interface for NIRC2 Asteroid
  Data Reduction

Akamai Big Island Internship Student Symposium
July 29, 2005
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The Problem Lots of Data

• Hundreds of asteroid images
• Data needs to be reduced
• Remove Instrument Systematics
• Remove Background
• Data Reduction
• Divide by Flat Field
• Subtract Background
• Remove hot pixels
• Deconvolve

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How to Reduce Data

• IDL Interactive Data Language
• Asteroid readfits(n0002.fits)
• Sky readfits(sky.fits)
• Asteroid Asteroid - Sky
• Surface, Asteroid
• Surf tvrd()
• Write_jpeg, surface.jpeg, Surf

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A Faster Way GUI

• A Graphical User Interface (GUI) is easier to use
  than text commands.
• NRX Asteroid is a program for reduction
  of NIRC2 images of asteroids

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Design Considerations

• Automatic processing and modular functionality
• Multi-platform support Windows UNIX
• How to create a Background Sky frame?
• What to do with Hot pixels?
• Create FITS files of reduced data
• Generate Web pages with surface plots

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NRX Asteroid

• Build a Background Sky
• Divide by Flat
• Subtract Sky
• Smooth Hot Pixels
• Save FITS
• Shift and Add
• Create surface plot
• Create Web Page
• Make a Movie

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Conclusions

• Reducing data with text commands takes too long.
• NRX Asteroid is a quick and easy way to reduce
  NIRC2 asteroid data and share it with others.
• Thanks to
• Center for Adaptive Optics
• Al Conrad
• W.M. Keck Observatories
• University of Hawaii at Hilo
• Acknowledgement This project is supported by
  the National Science Foundation Science and
  Technology Center for Adaptive Optics, managed by
  the University of California at Santa Cruz under
  cooperative agreement No. AST - 9876783.