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Institut für Astronomie und Astrophysik

Abteilung Astronomie

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readlc Source code in readlc.pro

readlc

Name
       readlc
Purpose
       Read a FITS lightcurve
Category
       lightcurves, FITS
Calling Sequence
       readlc,time,rate,error,filename,/bary,/mjd,timerange=[min,max]
       readlc,time,rate,filename,/bary,/mjd,/counts
Input Parameters
       FILENAME: Name of the lightcurve to be read
Optional Input Parameters
       min,max     : timerange of the lightcurve to be read
       timecol_name: name of the time column in fits file
                     default: 'TIME'
       ratecol_name: name of the rate column in fits file
                     default: 'RATE'
       errcol_name : name of the rate error column in fits file
                     default: 'ERROR'
Keyword Parameters
       /mjd   : calculates the Modified Julian Date from the data in
                the lightcurve and return this time instead of Mission
                Elapsed Time in the time column
       /bary  : read the barycenter corrected timecolumn 'BARYTIME)'
                instead. If no such column is present, a warning is
                printed and the normal timecolumn is read
       /counts: The lightcurve contains COUNTS/BIN, not the timerate
Output Parameters
       time : the time column of the lightcurve
       rate : the measured counting rate (resp. photon-number if the
              counts keyword is set) column
Optional Output
       error  : the uncertainty of the count-rate
Restrictions
       readlc needs LOTS of memory - this results in problems
                                     with huge lightcurves
Procedure

Example
       readlc,time,rate,error,'vela.lc',timerange=[0,1000]
       readlc,time,rate,filename,ratecol_name='RATE1', errcol_name='ERROR1'
Revision History
 $Log: readlc.pro,v $
 Revision 1.5  2006/03/30 08:46:32  barnsted
 new optional parameters for defining column names
 Revision 1.4  2005/09/22 12:16:46  wilms
 switch off annoying information from readfits
       v1.0 written 1996 by Ingo Kreykenbohm, AIT
       v2.0 1997/03/04 I.K., J.W.: made error an optional argument to
                     save memory and time; further small
                     optimizations
       v2.1 2000/01/20 Joern Wilms: added counts keyword
       v2.2 2000/06/15 JW: cosmetic change in documentation
    CVS Version 1.3 Joern Wilms, 2001/03/22
       improved handling of mjd keyword (now takes into account time
       column in units other than seconds, improved reading of the
       MJDREF keyword and its companions).

Last modified by pro2html on 2006 March 31 at 03:10 UTC

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Jörn Wilms (wilms@astro.uni-tuebingen.de)
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