solve-field (1)

NAME

solve-field - Main high-level command-line user interface.

SYNOPSIS

solve-field [options] [image-file-1 image-file-2 ...] [xyls-file-1 xyls-file-2 ...]

DESCRIPTION

Main high-level command-line user interface for astrometry.net

You can specify http:// or ftp:// URLs instead of filenames. The "wget" or "curl" program will be used to retrieve the URL.

The astrometry engine will take any image and return the astrometry world coordinate system (WCS), ie a standards-based description of the (usually nonlinear) transformation between image coordinates and sky coordinates with absolutely no “false positives” (but maybe some “no answers”). It will do its best, even when the input image has no or totally incorrect meta data.

OPTIONS

-h, --help

Print the help message

-v, --verbose

Be more chatty. Repeat for even more verboseness

-D, --dir directory

Place all output files in the specified directory

-o, --out file

Name the output files with this base name

-b, --backend-config file

Use this config file for the "astrometry-engine" program

--config file

Use this config file for the "astrometry-engine" program

--batch

Run astrometry-engine once, rather than once per input file

-f, --files-on-stdin

Read filenames to solve on stdin, one per line

-p, --no-plots

Don't create any plots of the results

--plot-scale scale

Scale the plots by this factor (eg, 0.25)

--plot-bg file

Set the background image to use for plots (JPEG)

-G, --use-wget

Use wget instead of curl

-O, --overwrite

Overwrite output files if they already exist

-K, --continue

Don't overwrite output files if they already exist; continue a previous run

-J, --skip-solved

Skip input files for which the 'solved' output file already exists; NOTE: this assumes single-field input files

--fits-image

assume the input files are FITS images

-N, --new-fits file

Output filename of the new FITS file containing the WCS header; "none" to not create this file

-Z, --kmz file

Create KMZ file for Google Sky. (requires wcs2kml)

-i, --scamp file

Create image object catalog for SCAMP

-n, --scamp-config file

Create SCAMP config file snippet

-U, --index-xyls file

Output filename for xylist containing the image coordinate of stars from the index

--just-augment

Just write the augmented xylist files; don't run astrometry-engine.

--axy file

Output filename for augment xy list (axy)

--temp-axy

Write 'augmented xy list' (axy) file to a temp file

--timestamp

Add timestamps to log messages

-7, --no-delete-temp

Don't delete temp files (for debugging)

-L, --scale-low scale

Lower bound of image scale estimate

-H, --scale-high scale

Upper bound of image scale estimate

-u, --scale-units units

In what units are the lower and upper bounds? Choices:

"degwidth", "degw", "dw"

width of the image, in degrees (default)

"arcminwidth", "amw", "aw"

width of the image, in arcminutes

"arcsecperpix", "app"

arcseconds per pixel

"focalmm"

35-mm (width-based) equivalent focal length

-8, --parity pos/neg

Only check for matches with positive/negative parity (default: try both)

-c, --code-tolerance distance

Matching distance for quads (default: 0.01)

-E, --pixel-error pixels

For verification, size of pixel positional error (default: 1)

-q, --quad-size-min fraction

Minimum size of quads to try, as a fraction of the smaller image dimension, default: 0.1

-Q, --quad-size-max fraction

Maximum size of quads to try, as a fraction of the image hypotenuse, default 1.0

--odds-to-tune-up odds

Odds ratio at which to try tuning up a match that isn't good enough to solve (default: 1e6)

--odds-to-solve odds

Odds ratio at which to consider a field solved (default: 1e9)

--odds-to-reject odds

Odds ratio at which to reject a hypothesis (default: 1e-100)

--odds-to-stop-looking odds

Odds ratio at which to stop adding stars when evaluating a hypothesis (default: HUGE_VAL)

--use-sextractor

Use SExtractor rather than built-in image2xy to find sources

--sextractor-config file

Use the given SExtractor config file. Note that CATALOG_NAME and CATALOG_TYPE values will be over-ridden by command-line values. This option implies --use-sextractor.

--sextractor-path file

Use the given path to the SExtractor executable. Default: just 'sextractor', assumed to be in your PATH. Note that you can give command line args here too (but put them in quotes), eg:

--sextractor-path 'sextractor -DETECT_TYPE CCD'.

This option implies --use-sextractor.

-3 RA, --ra RA

RA of field center for search, format: degrees or hh:mm:ss

-4 DEC, --dec DEC

DEC of field center for search, format: degrees or hh:mm:ss

-5 degrees, --radius degrees

Only search in indexes within 'radius' of the field center given by --ra and --dec

-d, --depth number or range

Number of field objects to look at, or range of numbers; 1 is the brightest star, so "-d 10" or "-d 1-10" mean look at the top ten brightest stars only.

--objs int

Cut the source list to have this many items (after sorting, if applicable).

-l, --cpulimit seconds

Give up solving after the specified number of seconds of CPU time

-r, --resort

Sort the star brightnesses by background-subtracted flux; the default is to sort using acompromise between background-subtracted and non-background-subtracted flux

-6, --extension int

FITS extension to read image from.

--invert

Invert the image (for black-on-white images)

-z, --downsample int

Downsample the image by factor int before running source extraction

--no-background-subtraction

Don't try to estimate a smoothly-varying sky background during source extraction.

--sigma float

Set the noise level in the image

-9, --no-remove-lines

Don't remove horizontal and vertical overdensities of sources.

--uniformize int

Select sources uniformly using roughly this many boxes (0=disable; default 10)

--no-verify-uniformize

Don't uniformize the field stars during verification

--no-verify-dedup

Don't deduplicate the field stars during verification

-0, --no-fix-sdss

Don't try to fix SDSS idR files.

-C, --cancel file

Filename whose creation signals the process to stop

-S, --solved file

Output file to mark that the solver succeeded

-I, --solved-in file

Input filename for solved file

-M, --match file

Output filename for match file

-R, --rdls file

Output filename for RDLS file

--sort-rdls column

Sort the RDLS file by this column; default is ascending; use "-column" to sort "column" in descending order instead.

--tag column

Grab tag-along column from index into RDLS file

--tag-all

Grab all tag-along columns from index into RDLS file

-j, --scamp-ref file

Output filename for SCAMP reference catalog

-B, --corr file

Output filename for correspondences

-W, --wcs file

Output filename for WCS file

-P, --pnm file

Save the PNM file as file

-k, --keep-xylist file

Save the (unaugmented) xylist to file

-A, --dont-augment

Quit after writing the unaugmented xylist

-V, --verify file

Try to verify an existing WCS file

--verify-ext extension

HDU from which to read WCS to verify; set this BEFORE --verify

-y, --no-verify

Ignore existing WCS headers in FITS input images

-g, --guess-scale

Try to guess the image scale from the FITS headers

--crpix-center

Set the WCS reference point to the image center

--crpix-x pix

Set the WCS reference point to the given position

--crpix-y pix

Set the WCS reference point to the given position

-T, --no-tweak

Don't fine-tune WCS by computing a SIP polynomial

-t, --tweak-order int

Polynomial order of SIP WCS corrections

-m, --temp-dir dir

Where to put temp files, default ,/tmp/

The following options are valid for xylist inputs only:

-F, --fields number or range

The FITS extension(s) to solve, inclusive

-w, --width pixels

Specify the field width

-e, --height pixels

Specify the field height

-X, --x-column column-name

The FITS column containing the X coordinate of the sources

-Y, --y-column column-name

The FITS column containing the Y coordinate of the sources

-s, --sort-column column-name

The FITS column that should be used to sort the sources

-a, --sort-ascending

Sort in ascending order (smallest first); default is descending order

Note that most output files can be disabled by setting the filename to "none". (If you have a sick sense of humour and you really want to name your output file "none", you can use "./none" instead.)

AUTHOR

The Astrometry.net team. Principal investigators are David W. Hogg (NYU) and Dustin Lang (CMU).

SEE ALSO

astrometry.net