Photometry - filter/db mismatch?

[Daniel Kustrin]

I have been using the photometry functionality on and off for a while now and it is great! Recent couple of releases appear to have changed something.

I always take my images using the R filter and i've been using Online Gaia -> R for comp stars which used to work perfectly. Now, when i create AAVSO report i keep getting Ensemble of Gaia DR3 stars ( transformed Online Gaia->R) WARNING INCOMPATIBLE FILTER AND DATABASE PASSBAND! in all cases. This was not the case in older releases (but i can't tell how old as i have not used it for a while).

If I use Manual star selection and run the photometry in the logs i get e.g.:

17:21:39  Manual selected transformation as set in tab Photometry. Filter=R. Online Gaia ->R
17:21:39  Photometry calibration for POINT SOURCES successful. 777 Gaia stars used for flux calibration. 

and if i use Measure all stars i get eg:

16:41:39  Photometry calibration for POINT SOURCES successful. 747 Gaia stars used for flux calibration.  Flux aperture diameter: 7.25 pixels. Standard error MZERO [magn]: 0.003%. Annulus inner diameter: 27 pixels. Stars with pixel values of 65535 or higher are ignored.
16:41:39  Photometric calibration is only valid if the filter passband (R) is compatible with the passband reference database (R). This is indicated by the coloured square icons in tab photometry.

My question is - why am i now getting the Ensemble of Gaia DR3 stars ( transformed Online Gaia->R) WARNING INCOMPATIBLE FILTER AND DATABASE PASSBAND! in the AAVSO report for the R filter? What am i missing?

Thank you!

[han.k]

Hi Daniel,

Thanks for the feedback. I will have a look next weekend. Currently I'm very busy with some other things here.

Han

[Daniel Kustrin]

Any progress with this one?

The latest version is now reporting that it expects filters to be one of "CV,(V,G,TG),B,RC,SI,SR,SG" but no other program uses "RC" for "R" (assuming RC refers to R in the Johnson-Cousins' UBVRI filter set). I am guessing RC is used to differentiate it from RGB R but no one should be using RGB filters for photometry.

if anyone is interested, "standard" filter names are listed on the AAVSO website: https://www.aavso.org/filters

[han.k]

Sorry I missed that. I have adapted the program to accept R. The icon colour is still a red orange. It is a pity R and B was chosen instead of Rc or Bj but I assume they did this before amateurs where taking colour images with R, G and B filters.

Development version Windows:
https://www.hnsky.org/astap_setup.exe

I will release Linux and Mac versions later this day.

Han

[han.k]

Here a screenshot

[Daniel Kustrin]

Thanks Han! Much appreciated. I'll have a play.

At the moment i've been editing the fits files using python (to make filters RC) and then i had to edit the output AAVSO files and rename RC to R. This will make things a lot easier.

The whole R vs RJ vs RC and B vs BJ is a mess, i agreee. also i think that you are probably right - this all came from the pro field where noone was using RGB filters to take pretty pictures.

Thank you!

[han.k]

ASTAP version 2025.01.13 was released today.