I have developed the following light curve analysis programs over the course of several years. In the interest of the Greater Good, I am making them publicly available. However, they were never really intended for generalized use, so treat them with care. Look at the code to see what is doing (my appologies for opaque and archaic coding practices, poor commenting, etc -- that's the hazzards of the game), and run lots of tests to be sure you get the answers you expect. Ultimately, you are responsible for the results, not me.
Feel free to change to code as suits your needs, but please keep the original comments (including authorship) for future historians to ponder.
I would be interested in receiving your comments and feedback on the programs. If you use them in a publication, please email me to let me know (I will be happy to have helped out a fellow photometrist), and if it is possible, please send a reprint to the address below.
1) Standard Light Curve Fitting Program -- This program is designed to "fill-in" a poorly-sampled (gappy) light curve of a variable star using existing light curve templates. It assumes that you know the period of the variable, and want to obtain light curve parameters like intensity-mean magnitude, maximum and minimum magnitudes, rise time, epoch of maximum light, etc.
2) Variable Star Period Search using Template Fitting -- This program fits the observed data for a varible star with 10 templates over range of potential periods, and locates most likely periods from the chi-squared minima. It produces data files and SuperMongo macros which help you visually select likely periods for further investigation.
3) More to come as time permits.
ACL - 2000 May 19
Postal Address:
Andrew Layden Physics & Astronomy Department 104 Overman Hall Bowling Green State University Bowling Green, Ohio, 43403, U.S.A.