[R] How do I find the apparent magnitude of a galaxy from a FITS file?

David L Carlson dcarlson at tamu.edu
Sat Aug 11 18:08:45 CEST 2012


Actually you could find it with RSiteSearch("FITS") which comes with base R
as the first hit:

1. R: Read a single data set from a FITS file (score: 51)
    Author: unknown
    Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2012 19:25:09 -0500
    Read a single data set from a FITS file Description Usage Arguments
Details Value Note Author(s) References See Also Examples page for readFITS
{FITSio} readFITS {FITSio} R Documentation Read a sing
http://finzi.psych.upenn.edu/R/library/FITSio/html/readFITS.html (8,088
bytes)

That leads you to FITSio, the package that you probably want to install and
learn how to use to read FITS files.

A little work with google leads to 
http://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FITS

It appears that FITS is an image and table format for storing astronomical
data so there is more than one kind of FITS file. You haven't told us what
kind of FITS file you are using or where it came from (although that
probably wouldn't help in this case since we answer questions about R not
astronomy). You probably need to re-visit the web site from which you
obtained the data and do a little research on your own (e.g.
http://www.sdss.org/dr7/).

----------------------------------------------
David L Carlson
Associate Professor of Anthropology
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX 77843-4352





> -----Original Message-----
> From: r-help-bounces at r-project.org [mailto:r-help-bounces at r-
> project.org] On Behalf Of David Winsemius
> Sent: Friday, August 10, 2012 8:36 PM
> To: andrej
> Cc: r-help at r-project.org
> Subject: Re: [R] How do I find the apparent magnitude of a galaxy from
> a FITS file?
> 
> 
> On Aug 10, 2012, at 4:06 PM, andrej wrote:
> 
> > I put "sos::findFn('fits')" into the search engine and it returned 0
> > results,
> > so how are you finding this?
> 
> 'sos' is an R package. I'm guessing you did not install and load 'sos'
> before typing that command at the console.  (You might be able to get
> away without loading by using the double-colon maneuver.) That was not
> a particularly well crafted search strategy IMO,  given the number of
> times that the word 'fit' or 'fits' will appear in statistical
> documentation.
> 
> sos::findFn('fits')
> found 2482 matches;  retrieving 20 pages, 400 matches.
> 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
> 
> Nonetheless, it "worked". The browser page coming up from that search
> had the package FITSio 25th line.
> 
> Better might have been:
> 
>  > sos::findFn('fits astronomical')
> found 4 matches;  retrieving 1 page
> 
> > Also: Why was my mailing list message rejected as a duplicate?
> 
> Because you posted two duplicate messages. One of them was forwarded
> to the list.
> 
> > I don't even understand how these underground subscriptions work, am
> > I off the mailing
> > list because it's a duplicate?
> 
> No. You were just notified in hopes that you would stop sending
> duplicates. The list-server thinks you are a subscriber, but for some
> reason it will keep on sending posting from new subscribers to the
> moderation queue for the first 24 hours. That's not something that
> moderator have control over. Don't complain, we don't like it either.
> 
> I don't understand the term "underground subscriptions". Mailing lists
> can be public or private. Ours is rather public, having multiple
> mirrors and search engines around the world. Our host university's
> site-admins have installed fairly stringent filters in an effort to
> prevent their domain from being automatically flagged as a source of
> spam. Some domains like hotmail.com have a high probability of being
> flagged for moderator review. Some posters from hotmail are on
> perpetual review, despite being perfectly fine citizens.
> 
> 
> > --
> > View this message in context: http://r.789695.n4.nabble.com/How-do-I-
> find-the-apparent-magnitude-of-a-galaxy-from-a-FITS-file-
> tp4639907p4639996.html
> > Sent from the R help mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
> 
> Nabble is not the r-help mailing list. You should read the Posting
> Guide and learn to include context with your replies. Nabble users are
> notorious for faling to heed that request.)
> 
> --
> 
> David Winsemius, MD
> Alameda, CA, USA
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-
> guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.



More information about the R-help mailing list