“merge amps” in mscred

Edward Olszewski wrote on Feb 13, 2006

I am running IRAF 2.12.2a.
Merge amps in ccdproc in mscred simply does nothing.

At the Steward 90" we are running 2.12.2.
Merge amps works.

Was there a bug fix or patch that was needed?

ed olszewski

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Francisco Valdes wrote on Feb 13, 2006

Hi Ed,

MSCRED is not directly tied to the IRAF system releases so I don't think there should be anything in 2.12.2a that would change the behavior of mscred. Is the data that fails and that which works at the 90" the same data? One thing the merging requires is certain keyword values that can be used to identify which amps are from the same CCD. Normally this would be CCDNAME which need to be identify strings for amps from the same CCD and different names between CCDs.

For a different reason I just posted the first distribution since May 2004 of MSCRED. You could try and update your version and see if that helps. But I would think it should not.

If the problem persists you can mail me directly with some header listings and parameter values and I'll try and see what might be wrong.

Yours,
Frank Valdes

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Edward Olszewski wrote on Feb 13, 2006

Frank,

I used the identical image in both places.
This is data from my 90prime camera, 4 ccds, 8 amps.
On the mountain I get 4 4096x4096 extensions when I ccdproc.
In my office it leaves it as 8 2048x4096 extensions.
Given that the mountain has other users, with one or more more iraf savvy
than me, maybe there's some other parameter file that's been correctly
modified on the mountain and not correctly set up in my office. Can you
give me a hint for what it might be? To be honest, I never really
understood if you really need an instrument file or not, so that might
be a likely place to look for differences?

ed olszewski

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Francisco Valdes wrote on Feb 13, 2006

There are four things I can think that would result in nothing happening.

• The "merge" parameter is not set to yes. :oops:
  
• The data has not been processed for overscan and trim. The program will not let you merge until after the overscan has been used and trimmed. I guess if you simply trim the overscan it would also work.
  
• The CCDNAME keywords are not setup correctly as I mentioned in my previous post.
  
• The data uses different keywords than the default and then instrument translation file is not set or right.
  </ul>
  
  The last one came to my mind when you mentioned the instrument file. An instrument file is not absolutely required if the header uses exactly the keywords and imagtyp values the program requests. So you might check to see if the mountain setup does indeed use a translation file. If this still doesn't point you to the answer send a header listing of two extensions that should end up merged.
  
  Frank </div> --- **Edward Olszewski** wrote on Feb 13, 2006
  Frank,
  
  User error. In town I had the instrument file set to mmt's megacam.
  The default instrument file works fine when it's actually set.
  Thanks for your help.
  
  ed olszewski
  --- *Last post on Feb 13, 2006*