WCSTools Publications WCSTools 3.0: More Tools for Image Astrometry and Catalog Searching Douglas J. Mink (2001), presented at the Eleventh Annual Conference on Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems (ADASS XI) in Victoria, British Columbia in September 2001 [WCSTools]

WCSTools 3.0: More Tools for Image Astrometry and Catalog Searching

Douglas J. Mink
Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory

For five years, WCSTools as provided image astrometry for astronomers who need accurate positions for objects they wish to observe. Other functions have been added and improved since the package was first released. Support has been added for new catalogs, such as the GSC-ACT, 2MASS Point Source Catalog, and GSC II, as they have come out. A simple command line interface can search any supported catalog, returning information in several standard formats, whether the catalog is on a local disk or searchable over the World Wide Web. The catalog searching routine can be located on either end (or both ends!) of such a web connection, and the output from one catalog search can be used as the input to another search.

The goal of this project is to have a good set of command line tools for dealing with images, their headers, source catalogs, and relationships between them. The FITS WCS standard will be completely supported when it is agreed upon (multiple world coordinate systems are already supported), and access to more catalog-serving web sites will be added in the future.

Source code and online documentation for this library are available at URL http://tdc-www.harvard.edu/software/wcstools/.

This poster is available online at http://tdc-www.harvard.edu/software/wcstools/publications/adass2001/.