7.2 Source Management with the ae_source_manager Tool

The overall process of identifying and extracting sources can become complex if your data are complex and you take a very careful approach. One fundamental bookkeeping problem is that the catalog may need to change over time. At multiple points in the data reduction process you may identify candidate sources that you wish to remove, you may identify new sources you wish to add, and you may choose to reposition existing sources, e.g. using position estimates computed by AE (§7.9). Usually, when a source's position is changed you will want to rename it, a task that involves changing both the catalog and the name of the source's extraction directory.

The tool ae_source_manager is used to create, remove, and re-position sources. It edits a master source list (stored in the file all.srclist) and manipulates AE source extraction directories. The ways it can be used are described below. All the inputs can be either scalars or vectors to manipulate one or multiple sources.

• To create a source, use /ADD and provide the coordinates.
  ae_source_manager, /ADD, RA=ra, DEC=dec, POSITION_TYPE='wavdetect'
  • The required keyword POSITION_TYPE should be a string (or string vector) describing the method used to estimate the source position. This information becomes the POSNTYPE source property (in source.stats).

  • The optional keyword PROVENANCE can be used to provide a string (or string vector) describing how each source was detected, e.g. ``wavdetect'', ``reconstruction'', ``by eye'', ``counterpart'', etc. This information becomes the PROVENAN source property (in source.stats).

  • The optional keyword LABEL can be used to provide a string that will be used to label the source in DS9 region files. If omitted the sequence number of the source is used.
  An AE extraction directory is created for the source in order to store the information provided.

• To remove a source, use /REMOVE and identify the source either by its name or label.
  ae_source_manager, /REMOVE, NAME ='104418.06-593059.4'
ae_source_manager, /REMOVE, LABEL='154'
  • The optional keyword TRASH_DIR can be used to specify a directory to which the obsolete AE extraction directories will be archived. If omitted the directory ./trash will be used.
  Entries for obsolete sources are commented out in (not removed from) the master source list (all.srclist).

• To re-position a source, use /MOVE, identify the source either by its name or label, and provide the new coordinates.
  ae_source_manager, /MOVE, POSITION_TYPE='by_eye', RA=ra, DEC=dec, NAME ='104418.06-593059.4'
ae_source_manager, /MOVE, POSITION_TYPE='by_eye', RA=ra, DEC=dec, LABEL='154'
  • The required keyword POSITION_TYPE should be a string (or string vector) describing the method used to estimate the revised source position.

  • Normally the source is renamed using the new coordinates, both in the master source list and in the extraction directory. If /NO_RENAME is specified the original name is retained.

• To re-position a source to either the ``mean data'' or ``correlation'' or ``reconstruction'' positions computed by AE (§7.9), use /UPDATE_POSITIONS_DATA or /UPDATE_POSITIONS_CORR or /UPDATE_POSITIONS_RECON and identify the source either by its name or label.
  ae_source_manager, /UPDATE_POSITIONS_DATA, NAME ='104418.06-593059.4'
ae_source_manager, /UPDATE_POSITIONS_CORR, LABEL='154'
  • The POSNTYPE source property is updated to reflect the type of position adopted for the source. If the position estimates you wish to apply were computed on a named merge (§7.8), then be sure to supply that merge name via the MERGE_NAME parameter.

• To sort the source list by RA and relabel by sequence number, use /SORT_RA and /SET_LABEL_AS_SEQUENCE.
  ae_source_manager, /SORT_RA
ae_source_manager, /SET_LABEL_AS_SEQUENCE

• To sort the source list by distance from the middle of the field and relabel by sequence number, use /SORT_BULLSEYE and /SET_LABEL_AS_SEQUENCE. This labeling may be more convenient for locating specific sources in DS9 during the data reduction process.
  ae_source_manager, /SORT_BULLSEYE
ae_source_manager, /SET_LABEL_AS_SEQUENCE

When sources are added, removed, or re-positioned the most straightforward reprocessing strategy is to simply repeat your entire extraction recipe. Several important algorithms require knowledge of all sources in the catalog, including the de-crowding algorithm in the tool ae_make_catalog (§7.5) and the background algorithms (§7.6.1).