Aperture photometry of moving asteroid

[AstroT]

Hi all --- me and students are wondering if AIJ has the functionality of letting a given aperture follow a moving object like an asteroid across the FoV in an automatic manner? Right now we have 100s of images and need to do the aperture photometry by hand for each image. Would be nice if that is possible.

[karenacollins]

Do you have an example calibrated image time series that you'd be willing to share with us to use for testing?

Karen

[AstroT]

Dear Karen,

thank you for your reply. Sure, I am attaching three FITS files. If you blink between them you will quickly identify the asteroid. Best wishes, Toby

Siegena_-_Polaroid-0001-0.zipSiegena_-_Polaroid-0010-0.zipSiegena_-_Polaroid-0020-0.zip

[karenacollins]

Do you have a sequence with more images (say >10)?

Also, our plan is to have the user identify the moving object in the first image using a mouse click and then identify the object in the last image. Multi-aperture would then assume the movement in RA/Dec is constant (in time) over the time-series for the purposes of placing the moving object aperture in the intermediate images (or if WCS coordinates are not available, it will assume movement in x,y is constant). Would this methodology work for your application?

Karen

[basilr]

Karen, what is the current status of this project - using AstroImageJ for photometry of moving objects (asteroids)? The plan you mentioned sounds good - for getting the raw data. But then the next step is period analysis, which is something most (all?) of the code for exoplanet work will probably not be of much help?? Period analysis may also be beyond the scope of your plans for AIJ (for now  <G> ).

Anyway, I would really appreciate the ability to just follow and measure a moving target. I almost always  use AIJ for my "first look" at the images I just took. When it comes to following an asteroid, usually my aperture settings "tolerate" the target, meaning the target's motion isn't fast enough and in the next image it's somewhere in the photometry aperture to allow automatic re-centering - but certainly not always, esp. after a meridian flip.

If there is some way I can help, please let me know. In the the last post you were asking about some images (>10) as an example? I can easily provide that (as well as a target with a good data and an obvious, short, lightcurve.)

Thanks,

Basil Rowe
 

[karenacollins]

Hi Basil,

Yes, since I never heard back from the other user, your image set would be useful if you can post somewhere for download.

The current plan is to use RA and Dec when images are platesolved to locate the moving object from image to image. Plate solved images would be required for this to all work with a meridian flip. Are your images already platesolved so that this approach would work?

We'll still need some weeks to get this feature implemented.

Karen

[basilr]

Great! I've picked out a couple asteroids that will hopefully help. I'll pull everything together and probably place it on my Google Drive and send you a link (personal email?) rather than post here. I will get it to you today (9.21) or tomorrow (9.22) at latest.

One question, when I look at your profile in this forum I see a link to send you an email. If I use that to send the link to my Google Drive is the email private? Just don't think it's necessary that everyone in the forum can grab stuff from my Google Drive, lol.

And yes, all images are plate solved.

Basil

[karenacollins]

Thank you and yes, using my private email address will be fine.

Karen

[basilr]

Done. Sent just now. Thank you for taking on this AIJ enhancement, really appreciated. Please let me know if I can be of further help.

Basil