--------------------------
> Added support for the CHIMERA instrument on the Palomar
200-inch Hale Telescope.
> Changed how error estimation is being performed. The
photometric noise is now being normalized using the
comparison star flux as a normalization factor. A
scaling factor has also been introduced to help
reduce over/under estimation of errorbars. The scaling
factor is designed to make sure that the average
1-sigma errorbar matches the standard deviation of the
light curve.
> Added support for the HiPERCAM photometry pipeline:
Version 1.2.0
https://cygnus.astro.warwick.ac.uk/phsaap/hipercam/docs/html/index.html
The photometry source parameter (source) defined in
the configuration file, or set on the command line
using the -s or --source option, can now be set to
"hcm". In this mode, it will assume that a file with
a name like output*log exists containing the raw
photometry. It will also assume that a .hcm file needs
to be loaded in order to display the first image, and
use a HiPERCAM aperture file (.ape) to display the
initial source aperture positions.
Some caveats for handling HiPERCAM output include:
- Can only handle single-CCD output.log files.
The HiPERCAM pipeline is designed to reduce
multiple CCDs simulatneously since the actual
HiPERCAM instrument is a 5-channel photometer,
but the phot2lc code is not yet designed to
parse multi-CCD output.
- So far it has only been tested for data acquired
from the McDonald 2.1m ProEM instrument or the
Palomar 200-in CHIMERA instrument. Data from
from other instruments reduced using the
HiPERCAM pipeline may not yet play nice with phot2lc.
Version 1.7.2 - 2023-02-08
---------------------------
> Improved error messaging for missing object name
from the stars.dat file.
> Improved header descriptions for the .lc and .phot files.
- Added new header row in .lc file listing the IDs of
comparison stars used to generate divided light curve.
- Added new header row in both .phot and .lc files
naming the observer that acquired the data.
- Made description of BJED header entry more clear
in the .lc file.
- Made description of the Time column in both the
.lc and .phot file more clear.
> Added support for Ultracam pipeline output, version
19/12/2005. Since the ultracam pipeline requires
specially formatted image files (.ucm), an additional
script, ucm_utils.py, has been added to the package.
This script contains functions that can read and decode
the binary .ucm files, namely the read_ucm function. This
code was taken and modified from Tom Marsh's ultracam
pipeline package:
https://github.com/trmrsh/trm-ultracam
Such a function was not needed for the HiPERCAM .hcm
files, since these are basically just FITS files and
can easily be read with astropy.io.fits.
The photometry source parameter (source) defined in
the configuration file, or set on the command line
using the -s or --source option, can now be set to
"ucm". Similar to the HiPERCAM option, it will assume
that a file with a name like output*log exists containing
the raw photometry. It will also assume that a .ucm file
needs to be loaded in order to display the first image,
and use an ULTRACAM aperture file (.ape) to display the
initial source aperture positions.
Version 1.7.3 (2023-02-09)
---------------------------
> Minor bug fixes
Version 1.7.4 (2023-04-28)
---------------------------
> Added new location info for the Tenerife site of the
Las Cumbres Observatory 1.0-m telescopes.
> Added new option for the config.dat file called
phot_basename, which allows users to specify the base
filename for the output from the photometry pipeline
being used (e.g. "runbase" for ccd_hsp or "output.log"
for ULTRA/HiPERCAM). There is also a new command line
option for phot2lc (-p, --photname), which allows users
to specify the basename at runtime or override whatever
the default value is in the config.dat file.
> Added a new command line convenience program "addstar"
that allows users to add a new entry into the stars.dat
file. Example usage:
addstar SDSSJ0000+1111 00:00:00.0 +11:11:11.1
Version 1.7.5 (2023-04-28)
---------------------------
> Minor bug fixes
Version 1.7.6 (2023-05-02)
---------------------------
> Minor bug fixes in addstar
Version 1.7.7 (2023 May 4)
---------------------------
> Better handling of NaN values in HiPERCAM and
ULTRACAM output.
> Better information print out from the addstar
command line function.
Version 1.7.8 (2023 May 16)
----------------------------
> Changed how the light curve "author" is handled. The
default now is to use your system username, which
happens when the "author" parameter in the config.dat
file is set to "sys-user". You can change this parameter
to any custom value you like by running the photconfig
script as usual, or there is now a command line option
-a/--author for phot2lc which allows you to override
the value in the config.dat file, e.g.:
phot2lc --author 'Zach Vanderbosch'
This update makes it easier for multiple people to use
the same phot2lc installation, e.g. on a computer that
a whole research group may use to store and reduce
their data. Now, different users no longer have to run
the photconfig script to change the author name in order
to get the correct author metadata into the .lc file.