Makali'i is a piece of software you can use to view and analyse FITS data. You can try Makali'i for 30 days without registering it. After 30 days, you must register Makali'i to carry on using it. It is free to register the software.
With Makali'i you can:
- adjust the contrast of an image easily using a slider
- quickly carry out photometry measurements
- easily save and export the results
- label and save images (this allows you to make a finder chart or include images in a report)
These video guides show you the basics of Makali'i and how to use it to do photometry.
There is also a text guide here.
The picture on this page shows a FITS header in Makali'i. We have listed the fields you will find useful for the Star Clusters project:
Credit: Fraser Lewis, Makali'i (NOAJ)
- DATE, UTSTART, MJD - the time at which the image was started (3rd December 2005).
- EXPTIME - the exposure time for that image (10 seconds).
- FILTER1 and FILTER2 - the filters used (Bessel-V band).
- INSTRUME - the camera used (Dillcam).
- GAIN - needed if you comment on the uncertainty of your results (value of 2.62).
Other information found in a FITS header that you might want to use (but not shown in the picture):
- TELESCOP - the telescope used to collect your data
- RA, DEC - the coordinates of the object at the centre of the image.
- L1SEEING - a value for the seeing at the time of the exposure. This tells you how good the atmospheric conditions were. Acceptable images have an L1SEEING value of less than 6. Very good images will be less than 4.
There are lots of other things you can use Makali'i for that are not needed in this project. You can blink between images. It lets you stack and align images. Makali'i can be used to combine colour images. It includes astrometry and spectroscopy functions. You can also use it to calibrate images using flat fields, dark frames, and bias frames.
Download the datasets
Plot your data