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[ascl:1206.001] RegiStax: Alignment, stacking and processing of images

RegiStax is software for alignment/stacking/processing of images; it was released over 10 years ago and continues to be developed and improved. The current version is RegiStax 6, which supports the following formats: AVI, SER, RFL (RegiStax Framelist), BMP, JPG, TIF, and FIT. This version has a shorter and simpler processing sequence than its predecessor, and optimizing isn't necessary anymore as a new image alignment method optimizes directly. The interface of RegiStax 6 has been simplified to look more uniform in appearance and functionality, and RegiStax 6 now uses Multi-core processing, allowing the user to have up to have multiple cores(recommended to use maximally 4) working simultaneous during alignment/stacking.

[ascl:1206.002] FITS Liberator: Image processing software

The ESA/ESO/NASA FITS Liberator makes it possible to process and edit astronomical science data in the FITS format to produce stunning images of the universe. Formerly a plugin for Adobe Photoshop, the current version of FITS Liberator is a stand-alone application and no longer requires Photoshop. This image processing software makes it possible to create color images using raw observations from a range of telescopes; the FITS Liberator continues to support the FITS and PDS formats, preferred by astronomers and planetary scientists respectively, which enables data to be processed from a wide range of telescopes and planetary probes, including ESO’s Very Large Telescope, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, ESA’s XMM–Newton Telescope and Cassini–Huygens or Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

[ascl:1206.003] STSDAS: IRAF Tools for Hubble Space Telescope data reduction

The Space Telescope Science Data Analysis System (STSDAS) is a software package for reducing and analyzing astronomical data. It is layered on top of IRAF and provides general-purpose tools for astronomical data analysis as well as routines specifically designed for HST data. In particular, STSDAS contains all the programs used for the calibration and reduction of HST data in the STScI post-observation processing pipelines.

[ascl:1206.004] MOLSCAT: MOLecular SCATtering v. 14

MOLSCAT version 14 is a FORTRAN code for quantum mechanical (coupled channel) solution of the nonreactive molecular scattering problem and was developed to obtain collision rates for molecules in the interstellar gas which are needed to understand microwave and infrared astronomical observations. The code is implemented for various types of collision partners. In addition to the essentially exact close coupling method several approximate methods, including the Coupled States and Infinite Order Sudden approximations, are provided. This version of the code has been superseded by MOLSCAT 2020 (ascl:2010.001).

[ascl:1206.005] bhint: High-precision integrator for stellar systems

bhint is a post-Newtonian, high-precision integrator for stellar systems surrounding a super-massive black hole. The algorithm makes use of the fact that the Keplerian orbits in such a potential can be calculated directly and are only weakly perturbed. For a given average number of steps per orbit, bhint is almost a factor of 100 more accurate than the standard Hermite method.

[ascl:1206.006] statpl: Goodness-of-fit for power-law distributed data

statpl estimates the parameter of power-law distributed data and calculates goodness-of-fit tests for them. Many objects studied in astronomy follow a power-law distribution function (DF), for example the masses of stars or star clusters. Such data is often analyzed by generating a histogram and fitting a straight line to it. The parameters obtained in this way can be severely biased, and the properties of the underlying DF, such as its shape or a possible upper limit, are difficult to extract. statpl is an (effectively) bias-free estimator for the exponent and the upper limit.

[ascl:1206.007] Plumix: Generating mass segregated star clusters

Plumix is a small package for generating mass segregated star clusters. Its output can be directly used as input initial conditions for NBODY4 or NBODY6 code. Mass segregation stands as one of the most robust features of the dynamical evolution of self-gravitating star clusters. We formulate parametrized models of mass segregated star clusters in virial equilibrium. To this purpose we introduce mean inter-particle potentials for statistically described unsegregated systems and suggest a single-parameter generalization of its form which gives a mass-segregated state. Plumix is a numerical C-code generating the cluster according the algorithm given for construction of appropriate star cluster models. Their stability over several crossing-times is verified by following the evolution by means of direct N-body integration.

[ascl:1206.008] Catena: Ensemble of stars orbit integration

Catena integrates the orbits of an ensemble of stars using the chain-regularization method (Mikkola & Aarseth) with an embedded Runge-Kutta integration method of 9(8)th order (Prince & Dormand).

[ascl:1206.009] Libimf

Libimf provides a collection of programming functions based on the general IMF-algorithm by Pflamm-Altenburg & Kroupa (2006).

[ascl:1206.010] mkj_libs: Helper routines for plane-fitting & analysis tools

mkj_libs provides a set of helper routines (vector operations, astrometry, statistical analysis of spherical data) for the main plane-fitting and analysis tools.

[ascl:1206.011] Double Eclipsing Binary Fitting

The parameters of the mutual orbit of eclipsing binaries that are physically connected can be obtained by precision timing of minima over time through light travel time effect, apsidal motion or orbital precession. This, however, requires joint analysis of data from different sources obtained through various techniques and with insufficiently quantified uncertainties. In particular, photometric uncertainties are often underestimated, which yields too small uncertainties in minima timings if determined through analysis of a χ2 surface. The task is even more difficult for double eclipsing binaries, especially those with periods close to a resonance such as CzeV344, where minima get often blended with each other.

This code solves the double binary parameters simultaneously and then uses these parameters to determine minima timings (or more specifically O-C values) for individual datasets. In both cases, the uncertainties (or more precisely confidence intervals) are determined through bootstrap resampling of the original data. This procedure to a large extent alleviates the common problem with underestimated photometric uncertainties and provides a check on possible degeneracies in the parameters and the stability of the results. While there are shortcomings to this method as well when compared to Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods, the ease of the implementation of bootstrapping is a significant advantage.

[ascl:1206.012] Time Utilities

Time Utilities are software tools that, in principal, allow one to calculate BJD to a precision of 1 μs for any target from anywhere on Earth or from any spacecraft. As the quality and quantity of astrophysical data continue to improve, the precision with which certain astrophysical events can be timed becomes limited not by the data themselves, but by the manner, standard, and uniformity with which time itself is referenced. While some areas of astronomy (most notably pulsar studies) have required absolute time stamps with precisions of considerably better than 1 minute for many decades, recently new areas have crossed into this regime. In particular, in the exoplanet community, we have found that the (typically unspecified) time standards adopted by various groups can differ by as much as a minute. Left uncorrected, this ambiguity may be mistaken for transit timing variations and bias eccentricity measurements. We recommend using BJD_TDB, the Barycentric Julian Date in the Barycentric Dynamical Time standard for any astrophysical event. The BJD_TDB is the most practical absolute time stamp for extraterrestrial phenomena, and is ultimately limited by the properties of the target system. We compile a general summary of factors that must be considered in order to achieve timing precisions ranging from 15 minutes to 1 μs, and provide software for download and online webapps for use.

[ascl:1206.013] ImageJ: Image processing and analysis in Java

ImageJ is a public domain Java image processing program inspired by NIH Image. It can display, edit, analyze, process, save and print 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit images. It can read many image formats including TIFF, GIF, JPEG, BMP, DICOM, FITS and "raw". It supports "stacks", a series of images that share a single window. It is multithreaded, so time-consuming operations such as image file reading can be performed in parallel with other operations.

[ascl:1206.014] ImageHealth: Quality Assurance for Large FITS Images

ImageHealth (IH) is a c program that makes use of standard CFITSIO routines to examine, in an automated fashion, .FITS images with any number of extensions, find objects within those images, and determine basic parameters of those images (stellar flux, background counts, FWHM, and ellipticity, along with sky background counts) in order to provide a snapshot of the quality of those images. A variety of python wrappers have also been written to test large numbers of such images and compare the results of ImageHealth to other image analysis programs, such as SourceExtractor. Additional IH-related tools will be made available in the future.

[ascl:1205.001] Mechanic: Numerical MPI framework for dynamical astronomy

The Mechanic package is a numerical framework for dynamical astronomy, designed to help in massive numerical simulations by efficient task management and unified data storage. The code is built on top of the Message Passing Interface (MPI) and Hierarchical Data Format (HDF5) standards and uses the Task Farm approach to manage numerical tasks. It relies on the core-module approach. The numerical problem implemented in the user-supplied module is separated from the host code (core). The core is designed to handle basic setup, data storage and communication between nodes in a computing pool. It has been tested on large CPU-clusters, as well as desktop computers. The Mechanic may be used in computing dynamical maps, data optimization or numerical integration.

[ascl:1205.002] p3d: General data-reduction tool for fiber-fed integral-field spectrographs

p3d is semi-automatic data-reduction tool designed to be used with fiber-fed integral-field spectrographs. p3d is a highly general and freely available tool based on IDL but can be used with full functionality without an IDL license. It is easily extended to include improved algorithms, new visualization tools, and support for additional instruments. It uses a novel algorithm for automatic finding and tracing of spectra on the detector, and includes two methods of optimal spectrum extraction in addition to standard aperture extraction. p3d also provides tools to combine several images, perform wavelength calibration and flat field data.

[ascl:1205.003] MIA+EWS: MIDI data reduction tool

MIA+EWS is a package of two data reduction tools for MIDI data which uses power-spectrum analysis or the information contained in the spectrally-dispersed fringe measurements in order to estimate the correlated flux and the visibility as function of wavelength in the N-band. MIA, which stands for MIDI Interactive Analysis, uses a Fast Fourier Transformation to calculate the Fourier amplitudes of the fringe packets to calculate the correlated flux and visibility. EWS stands for Expert Work-Station, which is a collection of IDL tools to apply coherent visibility analysis to reduce MIDI data. The EWS package allows the user to control and examine almost every aspect of MIDI data and its reduction. The usual data products are the correlated fluxes, total fluxes and differential phase.

[ascl:1205.004] Turbospectrum: Code for spectral synthesis

Turbospectrum is a 1D LTE spectrum synthesis code which covers 600 molecules, is fast with many lines, and uses the treatment of line broadening described by Barklem & O’Mara (1998).

[ascl:1205.005] Fv: Interactive FITS file editor

Fv is an easy-to-use graphical program for viewing and editing any FITS format image or table. The Fv software is small, completely self-contained and runs on Windows PCs, most Unix platforms and Mac OS-X. Fv also provides a portal into the Hera data analysis service from the HEASARC.

[ascl:1205.006] Flexion: IDL code for calculating gravitational flexion

Gravitational flexion is a technique for measuring 2nd order gravitational lensing signals in background galaxies and radio lobes. Unlike shear, flexion directly probes variations of the potential field. Moreover, the information contained in flexion is orthogonal to what is found in the shear. Thus, we get the information "for free."

[ascl:1205.007] Iris: The VAO SED Application

Iris is a downloadable Graphical User Interface (GUI) application which allows the astronomer to build and analyze wide-band Spectral Energy Distributions (SEDs). The components of Iris have been contributed by members of the VAO. Specview, contributed by STScI, provides a GUI for reading, editing, and displaying SEDs, as well as defining models and parameter values. Sherpa, contributed by the Chandra project at SAO, provides a library of models, fit statistics, and optimization methods; the underlying I/O library, SEDLib, is a VAO product written by SAO to current IVOA (International Virtual Observatory Alliance) data model standards. NED is a service provided by IPAC for easy location of data for a given extragalactic source, including SEDs. SedImporter converts non-standard SED data files into a format supported by Iris.

[ascl:1205.008] Mayavi2: 3D Scientific Data Visualization and Plotting

Mayavi provides general-purpose 3D scientific visualizations. It offers easy interactive tools for data visualization that fit with the scientific user's workflow. Mayavi provides several entry points: a full-blown interactive application; a Python library with both a MATLAB-like interface focused on easy scripting and a feature-rich object hierarchy; widgets associated with these objects for assembling in a domain-specific application, and plugins that work with a general purpose application-building framework.

[ascl:1205.009] ARES: Automatic Routine for line Equivalent widths in stellar Spectra

ARES was developed for the measurement of Equivalent Width of absortion lines in stellar spectra; it can also be used to determine fundamental spectroscopic stellar parameters.The code reads a 1D FITS spectra and fits the requested lines in order to calculate the Equivalent width. The code is written in C++ based on the standard method of determining EWs. It automates the manual procedure that one normally carries out when using interactive routines such as the splot routine implemented in IRAF.

[ascl:1205.010] Meudon PDR: Atomic & molecular structure of interstellar clouds

The Meudon PDR code computes the atomic and molecular structure of interstellar clouds. It can be used to study the physics and chemistry of diffuse clouds, photodissociation regions (PDRs), dark clouds, or circumstellar regions. The model computes the thermal balance of a stationary plane-parallel slab of gas and dust illuminated by a radiation field and takes into account heating processes such as the photoelectric effect on dust, chemistry, cosmic rays, etc. and cooling resulting from infrared and millimeter emission of the abundant species. Chemistry is solved for any number of species and reactions. Once abundances of atoms and molecules and level excitation of the most important species have been computed at each point, line intensities and column densities can be deduced.

[ascl:1205.011] VOSpec: VO Spectral Analysis Tool

VOSpec is a multi-wavelength spectral analysis tool with access to spectra, theoretical models and atomic and molecular line databases registered in the VO. The standard tools of VOSpec include line and continuum fitting, redshift and reddening correction, spectral arithmetic and convolution between spectra, equivalent width and flux calculations, and a best fitting algorithm for fitting selected SEDs to a TSAP service. VOSpec offers several display modes (tree vs table) and organising functionalities according to the available metadata for each service, including distance from the observation position.

[ascl:1204.001] WM-basic: Modeling atmospheres of hot stars

WM-basic is an easy-to-use interface to a program package which models the atmospheres of Hot Stars (and also SN and GN). The release comprises all programs required to calculate model atmospheres which especially yield ionizing fluxes and synthetic spectra. WM-basic is a native 32-bit application, conforming to the Multiple Documents Interface (MDI) standards for Windows XP/2000/NT/9x. All components of the program package have been compiled with Digital Visual Fortran V6.6(Pro) and Microsoft Visual C++.

[ascl:1204.002] pyBLoCXS: Bayesian Low-Count X-ray Spectral analysis

pyBLoCXS is a sophisticated Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) based algorithm designed to carry out Bayesian Low-Count X-ray Spectral (BLoCXS) analysis in the Sherpa environment. The code is a Python extension to Sherpa that explores parameter space at a suspected minimum using a predefined Sherpa model to high-energy X-ray spectral data. pyBLoCXS includes a flexible definition of priors and allows for variations in the calibration information. It can be used to compute posterior predictive p-values for the likelihood ratio test. The pyBLoCXS code has been tested with a number of simple single-component spectral models; it should be used with great care in more complex settings.

[ascl:1204.003] BUDDA: BUlge/Disk Decomposition Analysis

Budda is a Fortran code developed to perform a detailed structural analysis on galaxy images. It is simple to use and gives reliable estimates of the galaxy structural parameters, which can be used, for instance, in Fundamental Plane studies. Moreover, it has a powerful ability to reveal hidden sub-structures, like inner disks, secondary bars and nuclear rings.

[ascl:1204.004] Fosite: 2D advection problem solver

Fosite implements a method for the solution of hyperbolic conservation laws in curvilinear orthogonal coordinates. It is written in Fortran 90/95 integrating object-oriented (OO) design patterns, incorporating the flexibility of OO-programming into Fortran 90/95 while preserving the efficiency of the numerical computation. Although mainly intended for CFD simulations, Fosite's modular design allows its application to other advection problems as well. Unlike other two-dimensional implementations of finite volume methods, it accounts for local conservation of specific angular momentum. This feature turns the program into a perfect tool for astrophysical simulations where angular momentum transport is crucial. Angular momentum transport is not only implemented for standard coordinate systems with rotational symmetry (i.e. cylindrical, spherical) but also for a general set of orthogonal coordinate systems allowing the use of exotic curvilinear meshes (e.g. oblate-spheroidal). As in the case of the advection problem, this part of the software is also kept modular, therefore new geometries may be incorporated into the framework in a straightforward manner.

[ascl:1204.005] MC3D: Monte-Carlo 3D Radiative Transfer Code

MC3D is a 3D continuum radiative transfer code; it is based on the Monte-Carlo method and solves the radiative transfer problem self-consistently. It is designed for the simulation of dust temperatures in arbitrary geometric configurations and the resulting observables: spectral energy distributions, wavelength-dependent images, and polarization maps. The main objective is the investigation of "dust-dominated" astrophysical systems such as young stellar objects surrounded by an optically thick circumstellar disk and an optically thin(ner) envelope, debris disks around more evolved stars, asymptotic giant branch stars, the dust component of the interstellar medium, and active galactic nuclei.

[ascl:1204.006] GRASIL: Spectral evolution of stellar systems with dust

GRASIL (which stands for GRAphite and SILicate) computes the spectral evolution of stellar systems taking into account the effects of dust, which absorbs and scatters optical and UV photons and emits in the IR-submm region. It may be used as well to do “standard” no-dust stellar spectral synthesis. The code is very well calibrated and applied to interpret galaxies at different redshifts. GRASIL can be downloaded or run online using the GALSYNTH WEB interface.

[ascl:1204.007] VH-1: Multidimensional ideal compressible hydrodynamics code

VH-1 is a multidimensional ideal compressible hydrodynamics code written in FORTRAN for use on any computing platform, from desktop workstations to supercomputers. It uses a Lagrangian remap version of the Piecewise Parabolic Method developed by Paul Woodward and Phil Colella in their 1984 paper. VH-1 comes in a variety of versions, from a simple one-dimensional serial variant to a multi-dimensional version scalable to thousands of processors.

[ascl:1204.008] StarFISH: For Inferring Star-formation Histories

StarFISH is a suite of programs designed to determine the star formation history (SFH) of a stellar population, given multicolor stellar photometry and a library of theoretical isochrones. It constructs a library of synthetic color-magnitude diagrams from the isochrones, which includes the effects of extinction, photometric errors and completeness, and binarity. A minimization routine is then used to determine the linear combination of synthetic CMDs that best matches the observed photometry. The set of amplitudes modulating each synthetic CMD describes the star formation history of the observed stellar population.

[ascl:1204.009] STOKES: Modeling Radiative Transfer and Polarization

STOKES was designed to perform three-dimensional radiative transfer simulations for astronomical applications. The code also considers the polarization properties of the radiation. The program is based on the Monte-Carlo method and treats optical and ultraviolet polarization induced by scattering off free electrons or dust grains. Emission and scattering regions can be arranged in various geometries within the model space, the computed continuum and line spectra can be evaluated at different inclinations and azimuthal viewing angles.

[ascl:1204.010] Shape: A 3D Modeling Tool for Astrophysics

Shape is a flexible interactive 3D morpho-kinematical modeling application for astrophysics. It reduces the restrictions on the physical assumptions, data type and amount required for a reconstruction of an object's morphology. It applies interactive graphics and allows astrophysicists to provide a-priori knowledge about the object by interactively defining 3D structural elements. By direct comparison of model prediction with observational data, model parameters can then be automatically optimized to fit the observation.

[ascl:1204.011] EXCOP: EXtraction of COsmological Parameters

The EXtraction of COsmological Parameters software (EXCOP) is a set of C and IDL programs together with a very large database of cosmological models generated by CMBFAST (ascl:9909.004) that will compute likelihood functions for cosmological parameters given some CMB data. This is the software and database used in the Stompor et al. (2001) analysis of a high resoultion Maxima1 CMB anisotropy map.

[ascl:1204.012] VirGO: A Visual Browser for the ESO Science Archive Facility

VirGO is the next generation Visual Browser for the ESO Science Archive Facility developed by the Virtual Observatory (VO) Systems Department. It is a plug-in for the popular open source software Stellarium adding capabilities for browsing professional astronomical data. VirGO gives astronomers the possibility to easily discover and select data from millions of observations in a new visual and intuitive way. Its main feature is to perform real-time access and graphical display of a large number of observations by showing instrumental footprints and image previews, and to allow their selection and filtering for subsequent download from the ESO SAF web interface. It also allows the loading of external FITS files or VOTables, the superimposition of Digitized Sky Survey (DSS) background images, and the visualization of the sky in a `real life' mode as seen from the main ESO sites. All data interfaces are based on Virtual Observatory standards which allow access to images and spectra from external data centers, and interaction with the ESO SAF web interface or any other VO applications supporting the PLASTIC messaging system.

[ascl:1204.013] ORSA: Orbit Reconstruction, Simulation and Analysis

ORSA is an interactive tool for scientific grade Celestial Mechanics computations. Asteroids, comets, artificial satellites, solar and extra-solar planetary systems can be accurately reproduced, simulated, and analyzed. The software uses JPL ephemeris files for accurate planets positions and has a Qt-based graphical user interface. It offers an advanced 2D plotting tool and 3D OpenGL viewer and the standalone numerical library liborsa and can import asteroids and comets from all the known databases (MPC, JPL, Lowell, AstDyS, and NEODyS). In addition, it has an integrated download tool to update databases.

[ascl:1204.014] WOMBAT: sWift Objects for Mhd BAsed on Tvd

WOMBAT (sWift Objects for Mhd BAsed on Tvd) is an astrophysical fluid code that is an implementation of a non-relativistic MHD TVD scheme; an extension for relativistic MHD has been added. The code operates on 1, 2, and 3D Eulerian meshes (cartesian and cylindrical coordinates) with magnetic field divergence restriction controlled by a constrained transport (CT) scheme. The user can tune code performance to a given processor based on chip cache sizes. Proper settings yield significant speed-ups due to efficient cache reuse.

[ascl:1204.015] PROFIT: Emission-line PROfile FITting routine

The PROFIT is an IDL routine to do automated fitting of emission-line profiles by Gaussian curves or Gauss-Hermite series optimized for use in Integral Field and Fabry-Perot data cubes. As output PROFIT gives two-dimensional FITS files for the emission-line flux distribution, centroid velocity, velocity dispersion and higher order Gauss-Hermite moments (h3 and h4).

[ascl:1204.016] ASCfit: Automatic Stellar Coordinate Fitting Package

A modular software package for automatically fitting astrometric world coordinates (WCS) onto raw optical or infrared FITS images. Image stars are identified with stars in a reference catalog (USNO-A2 or 2MASS), and coordinates derived as a simple linear transformation from (X,Y) pixels to (RA,DEC) to the accuracy level of the reference catalog used. The package works with both optical and infrared images, at sidereal and non-sidereal tracking rates.

[ascl:1204.017] epsnoise: Pixel noise in ellipticity and shear measurements

epsnoise simulates pixel noise in weak-lensing ellipticity and shear measurements. This open-source python code can efficiently create an intrinsic ellipticity distribution, shear it, and add noise, thereby mimicking a "perfect" measurement that is not affected by shape-measurement biases. For theoretical studies, we provide the Marsaglia distribution, which describes the ratio of normal variables in the general case of non-zero mean and correlation. We also added a convenience method that evaluates the Marsaglia distribution for the ratio of moments of a Gaussian-shaped brightness distribution, which gives a very good approximation of the measured ellipticity distribution also for galaxies with different radial profiles. We provide four shear estimators, two based on the ε ellipticity measure, two on χ. While three of them are essentially plain averages, we introduce a new estimator which requires a functional minimization.

[ascl:1203.001] AE: ACIS Extract

ACIS Extract (AE), written in the IDL language, provides innovative and automated solutions to the varied challenges found in the analysis of X-ray data taken by the ACIS instrument on NASA's Chandra observatory. AE addresses complications found in many Chandra projects: large numbers of point sources (hundreds to several thousand), faint point sources, misaligned multiple observations of an astronomical field, point source crowding, and scientifically relevant diffuse emission. AE can perform virtually all the data processing and analysis tasks that lie between Level 2 ACIS data and publishable LaTeX tables of point-like and diffuse source properties and spectral models.

[ascl:1203.002] GALAPAGOS: Galaxy Analysis over Large Areas: Parameter Assessment by GALFITting Objects from SExtractor

GALAPAGOS, Galaxy Analysis over Large Areas: Parameter Assessment by GALFITting Objects from SExtractor (ascl:1010.064), automates source detection, two-dimensional light-profile Sersic modelling and catalogue compilation in large survey applications. Based on a single setup, GALAPAGOS can process a complete set of survey images. It detects sources in the data, estimates a local sky background, cuts postage stamp images for all sources, prepares object masks, performs Sersic fitting including neighbours and compiles all objects in a final output catalogue. For the initial source detection GALAPAGOS applies SExtractor, while GALFIT (ascl:1104.010) is incorporated for modelling Sersic profiles. It measures the background sky involved in the Sersic fitting by means of a flux growth curve. GALAPAGOS determines postage stamp sizes based on SExtractor shape parameters. In order to obtain precise model parameters GALAPAGOS incorporates a complex sorting mechanism and makes use of multiplexing capabilities. It combines SExtractor and GALFIT data in a single output table. When incorporating information from overlapping tiles, GALAPAGOS automatically removes multiple entries from identical sources.

GALAPAGOS is programmed in the Interactive Data Language, IDL. A C implementation of the software, GALAPAGOS-C (ascl:1408.011), is available, and a multi-band Galapagos version is also available.

[ascl:1203.003] spec2d: DEEP2 DEIMOS Spectral Pipeline

The DEEP2 DEIMOS Data Reduction Pipeline ("spec2d") is an IDL-based, automated software package designed to reduce Keck/DEIMOS multi-slit spectroscopic observations, collected as part of the DEEP2 Galaxy Redshift Survey. The pipeline is best suited for handling data taken with the 1200 line/mm grating tilted towards the red (lambda_c ~ 7800Å). The spec2d reduction package takes the raw DEIMOS data as its input and produces a variety of outputs including 2-d slit spectra and 1-d object spectra.

[ascl:1203.004] FERENGI: Full and Efficient Redshifting of Ensembles of Nearby Galaxy Images

Bandpass shifting and the (1+z)5 surface brightness dimming (for a fixed width filter) make standard tools for the extraction of structural parameters of galaxies wavelength dependent. If only few (or one) observed high-res bands exist, this dependence has to be corrected to make unbiased statements on the evolution of structural parameters or on galaxy subsamples defined by morphology. FERENGI artificially redshifts low-redshift galaxy images to different redshifts by applying the correct cosmological corrections for size, surface brightness and bandpass shifting. A set of artificially redshifted galaxies in the range 0.1<z<1.1 using a set of ~100 SDSS low-redshift (v<7000 km s-1) images as input has been created to use as a training set of realistic images of galaxies of diverse morphologies and a large range of redshifts for the GEMS and COSMOS galaxy evolution projects. This training set allows other studies to investigate and quantify the effects of cosmological redshift on the determination of galaxy morphologies, distortions, and other galaxy properties that are potentially sensitive to resolution, surface brightness, and bandpass issues. The data sets are also available for download from the FERENGI website.

[ascl:1203.005] Gyoto: General relativitY Orbit Tracer of Observatoire de Paris

GYOTO, a general relativistic ray-tracing code, aims at computing images of astronomical bodies in the vicinity of compact objects, as well as trajectories of massive bodies in relativistic environments. This code is capable of integrating the null and timelike geodesic equations not only in the Kerr metric, but also in any metric computed numerically within the 3+1 formalism of general relativity. Simulated images and spectra have been computed for a variety of astronomical targets, such as a moving star or a toroidal accretion structure. The underlying code is open source and freely available. It is user-friendly, quickly handled and very modular so that extensions are easy to integrate. Custom analytical metrics and astronomical targets can be implemented in C++ plug-in extensions independent from the main code.

[ascl:1203.006] EMACSS: Evolve Me A Cluster of StarS

The star cluster evolution code Evolve Me A Cluster of StarS (EMACSS) is a simple yet physically motivated computational model that describes the evolution of some fundamental properties of star clusters in static tidal fields. The prescription is based upon the flow of energy within the cluster, which is a constant fraction of the total energy per half-mass relaxation time. According to Henon's predictions, this flow is independent of the precise mechanisms for energy production within the core, and therefore does not require a complete description of the many-body interactions therein. Dynamical theory and analytic descriptions of escape mechanisms is used to construct a series of coupled differential equations expressing the time evolution of cluster mass and radius for a cluster of equal-mass stars. These equations are numerically solved using a fourth-order Runge-Kutta integration kernel; the results were benchmarked against a data base of direct N-body simulations. EMACSS is publicly available and reproduces the N-body results to within ~10 per cent accuracy for the entire post-collapse evolution of star clusters.

[ascl:1203.007] EBTEL: Enthalpy-Based Thermal Evolution of Loops

Observational and theoretical evidence suggests that coronal heating is impulsive and occurs on very small cross-field spatial scales. A single coronal loop could contain a hundred or more individual strands that are heated quasi-independently by nanoflares. It is therefore an enormous undertaking to model an entire active region or the global corona. Three-dimensional MHD codes have inadequate spatial resolution, and 1D hydro codes are too slow to simulate the many thousands of elemental strands that must be treated in a reasonable representation. Fortunately, thermal conduction and flows tend to smooth out plasma gradients along the magnetic field, so "0D models" are an acceptable alternative. We have developed a highly efficient model called Enthalpy-Based Thermal Evolution of Loops (EBTEL) that accurately describes the evolution of the average temperature, pressure, and density along a coronal strand. It improves significantly upon earlier models of this type--in accuracy, flexibility, and capability. It treats both slowly varying and highly impulsive coronal heating; it provides the differential emission measure distribution, DEM(T), at the transition region footpoints; and there are options for heat flux saturation and nonthermal electron beam heating. EBTEL gives excellent agreement with far more sophisticated 1D hydro simulations despite using four orders of magnitude less computing time. It promises to be a powerful new tool for solar and stellar studies.

[ascl:1203.008] MegaLUT: Correcting ellipticity measurements of galaxies

MegaLUT is a simple and fast method to correct ellipticity measurements of galaxies from the distortion by the instrumental and atmospheric point spread function (PSF), in view of weak lensing shear measurements. The method performs a classification of galaxies and associated PSFs according to measured shape parameters, and builds a lookup table of ellipticity corrections by supervised learning. This new method has been applied to the GREAT10 image analysis challenge, and demonstrates a refined solution that obtains the highly competitive quality factor of Q = 142, without any power spectrum denoising or training. Of particular interest is the efficiency of the method, with a processing time below 3 ms per galaxy on an ordinary CPU.

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