Automatic Astrometry Using IRAF
Autoast.cl & Intast.cl



AUTOAST.CL and INTAST.CL are IRAF tasks designed for automatic plate solution and astrometry. These programs are running under UNIX/LINUX - IRAF.

AUTOAST.CL is designed to automatically find reference stars in the image (by stars pattern recognition) and then find the plate solution of the image, writing the WCS keyword in the image header and converting coordinates from/to the image coordinate system.

INTAST.CL is an interactive version designed to find the equatorial coordinates and magnitude (relative to USNO-A magnitudes) of objects in the image selected using the mouse.

The programs are identifying the reference stars from the USNO-A catalogue without user intervention. The sole requirements of the programs are: (1) north-aligned images, (2) guess coordinates (either manual or from the header) accurate to about one field of view of the image.

Version for rotated images will be available within few weeks.

Required Software:
IRAF Installed.
The program was tested only on a Linux system, but it may be ported to other systems by a few modifications.



 Download autoast.tar.gz
 Dounload a short manual [PostScript]
 Dounload a short manual [PDF]
 WCSTools Home Page (Also Needed, retrieve scat)
 Scat.gz Linux binary

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Constructed: Feb 2000 By Eran Ofek.