Taking Images

This document covers taking images with the SBIG ST-8E CCD camera using the Linux interface.

The command-line tool for taking images is image_sbig.

It requires 2 mandatory command line arguments:

The exposure length
The name of the file to which to write the image

For example, to take a 10 s exposure, saving the image to Object.fits, one would type:
image_sbig 10 Object.fits

Note that all images are stored in FITS format. You can view FITS files with:

xv
ds9

OPTIONS

There are options which can be appended to the command line which control aspects of the image, and add information to the header of the FITS file.

Options which modify the image

-b n where n can be:
- 1 for no binning
- 2 for 2x2 binning
- 3 for 3x3 binning
The default is 1
-a c where c is the anti-blooming gate state:
- o for Off
- l for Low
- m for Medium
- h for High
The default is Off

Options which add information to the FIT header

-o "Observer Name"
-O "Object"
-f f where f is the filter, which is generally one of C, U, B, V, R, I
-R RA which is the Right Ascension in HH:MM:SS
-D Dec which is the Declination in SDD:MM:SS
-E Epoch the epoch of the coordinates

For Example,
image_sbig 200 Enterprise.fits -b 2 -o "Mr. Sulu" -O "Starship Enterprise"
would expose for 200 seconds, bin the image by 2, and save the image in the file Enterprise.fits and recording the observer to be 'Mr. Sulu' and the object to be 'Starship Enterprise'.