Prev Up Next
Go backward to 1 Introduction.
Go up to Top
Go forward to 3 The GUI interface

2 Getting started.

By way of introduction we will describe the program features that are required for the simple data reduction process. If you follow through this chapter, you should be able to produce wavefront measurement from your own images with little difficulty. If you are using the software at a new site you will need to define the optical system you are using, this will probably require some research on your part. In our experience problems with ef can usually be traced back to the use of optical system parameters which are slightly in error, or images which are insufficiently defocussed. Laplacian Optics Inc. would be happy to review example extra-focal images from your system, and determine if the optical parameters match the images. If you have access to an anonymous FTP site, please place the images on this site and contact us by mail at laplace@laplacian.com. If you do not have access to an anonymous FTP site please visit our web site for instructions on downloading images to Laplacian Optics Inc. .

We supply ef with a pair of example extra-focal images which can be found in the documentation directory in the sub-directory example. In the following section we give step by step instructions for obtaining wavefronts from this data. The example data are computer generated extra-focal images assuming 0.5" seeing with the following wavefront errors.
Zernike name Zernike Number Amplitude (RMS nm)
Focus 4 1000
Astigmatism 5 330
Coma 8 -220
Trefoil 9 -220
Spherical 11 220
High order coma 17 100

On the original distribution CD, you will find a directory named examples, which contains many other example images.

In the following tutorial it is assumed that the extra-focal images being reduced will be in standard FITS format. It is further assumed that there is a separate file containing each extra-focal image. The program can also unformatted image files containing no header information, provided the file name follows a convention which allows the program to determine the image type and size. See reading an image file for more details.

The program remembers most of its settings, optical and data reduction configurations and sub-window positions from invocation to invocation. For more details .

  • 2.1 Running the program.
  • 2.2 Bottom toolbar.
  • 2.3 Choosing an optical configuration.
  • 2.4 Loading the extra-focal images.
  • 2.5 Observing the program operation.
  • 2.6 Running the data reduction.
  • 2.7 Outputting the results.
  • 2.8 Controlling the display.
  • 2.9 Reviewing the calculation.

  • Laplacian Optics Inc.     Email:   laplace@laplacian.com

    Prev Up Next