Re: Perform differential photometry on an object moving across a field

Posted by karenacollins on Jan 20, 2016; 10:41am
URL: http://astroimagej.170.s1.nabble.com/Perform-differential-photometry-on-an-object-moving-across-a-field-tp240p322.html

Hi Pablo,

As you have found, DP Coordinate Converter is not tied into
Multi-Aperture. However, I understand the need to track moving objects.
I have very little experience with solar system observing. Could you and
any other interested parties let me know how you normally find the RA
and Dec of fast moving objects such as comets, asteroids, satellites,
etc for a particular image? Or, do you have a way to look up the target
proper motion for a given date? If I use proper motion, that requires
all images to have a WCS solution. Some people might prefer a way to
specify movement in x,y pixel coordinates to avoid having to plate solve
all the images.

All Readers,
If you have a preferred idea of how to implement the tracking of moving
objects in AIJ, please explain your idea in this thread.

One thought I had was to provide a routine that asks the user to click
on the moving object in two images of the sequence, then AIJ would
calculate the motion in pixels/sec (or proper motion if WCS headers are
available) using the time in the FITS header. Once I understand the best
way to satisfy most AIJ user's needs, I could consider adding some
tracking capability to Multi-Aperture.

Karen