AutoCal: A software application for calibrating photometric data
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Date
2016
Authors
Wium, Daniël J.
Van Soelen, Brian
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf)
Abstract
We present a software application for the calibration of stellar magnitudes in the absence of standard stars.
It uses an existing algorithm to match stars in the target’s field of view to catalogue entries and computes
the average offset between the two sets of magnitudes using a weighted least-squares approach. This offset
is used to calibrate the target’s instrumental magnitude. The software application was used to calibrate
magnitudes for six Be/X-ray binary sources in the Small Magellanic Cloud and the results were compared
with published results for these sources. Where comparisons were possible, our results agreed with those
results within the uncertainties specified. Infrared variability was found for all six of the sources tested. The
interactive outlier removal that was made possible by our software allowed for smaller uncertainties to be
reported for our results.
Description
Windows installer file (Windows 7) and PDF manual also available
Keywords
Astrophysics, Software, Photometry, Be/X-ray binaries, Calibration
Citation
Wium DJ, Van Soelen B. AutoCal: A software application for calibrating photometric data. S Afr J Sci. 2016;112(3/4), Art. #2015-0034, 8 pages. http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/sajs.2016/20150034