Wqed: A new tool for

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Wqed A new tool for
Fergal Mullally Dept. Astrophysical Sciences,
Princeton (fergal_at_astro.princeton.edu)
Abstract We present a set of tools for
processing time-series photometry. Observations
of variable stars typically need to be corrected
for atmospheric effects - clouds and other
transparency variations - before being analysed
with tools such as Period04. The Whole Earth
Telescope developed a new package for this task
that was successfully used in our spring
campaign. Wqed contains a graphical interface
for lightcurve division, smoothing, bad point
removal, and other common tasks. It also provides
a script for extracting header information from
fits files. A modular design and ASCII formats
simplifies the adaptation of Wqed to a new
telescope or reduction pipeline, and has been
successfully used on all 25 telescopes that
participated in XCov26. We have found these
tools useful and easy to use, and make them
available to the general community.
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lightcurve analysis
Susan E. Thompson DARC, University of Delaware
(sthomp_at_udel.edu)

• Successfully used at last Whole Earth Telescope
  run (XCov26)
• Detailed manual
• Tools supplied for quick analysis and keeping
  track of reduced data
• Download from http//www.physics.udel.edu/darc/wqe
  d/

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Status Bar
Select a region and zoom in using your mouse
Target White Dwarf Lightcurve
Up to 8 Reference stars
Sky counts
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Use your mouse to remove data badly contaminated
by cloud.
Dont like what you did? Use the undo function.
Text box gives instructions on what to do next.
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Divide lightcurve by a combination of reference
stars
Fit trends, bridge gaps, and smooth data, all
using the mouse and simple single character
keyboard commands
Mostly bug free!