Calibration Tool

The calibration tool allows to create and change calibration tables, as well as apply or de-apply calibration parameters to data. NCDRT must be in the eight channel mode (no averaging) for this tool to work properly.

Text windows and buttons

Create New Calibration Table

calibration_display_event.pro

Create a new calibration table and write it to the file selected with the pick file dialog widget. Any file name can be given.

Read Existing Calibration Table

read_cal_table.pro

Read an existing calibration table. The pick file dialog widget allows to chose the file. NCDRT checks if the file is a calibration table or not.

Calibration table information text window

This window contains the information about the currently loaded calibration table.

Write To Calibration Table

write_2_cal_table.pro

This is the routine which does the actual calibration. The user must program the calibrators and frequencies. At the time of writing, three calibrators are included, with the frequencies corresponding to the maps 1 - 6 of the P3B01 Mars project. The routine uses the frequency read by load_obs.pro in the pou file to identify the frequency set to use (parameter central_freq). It next checks the name of the object (parameter object), also read by load_obs.pro from the pou file. If it does not find a correspondance between the object name and the included calibrators, it will notify that no calibrator was found.

The absolute fluxes for the three calibrators included (3C123, 3C161 and 3C295) are taken from Ott et al. (A&A 284, 331-339, 1994, Table 5).

Once the absolute fluxes are calculated, the routine compares them to the measured fluxes from the calibrator observation. The calibration factor for each channel is determined (including the error, which is the total error, see section 5.1), also for the averaging channels. It is assumed that the calibrator is non polarised, so that every channels corresponds to half the total flux (in fact, the total flux is what is written in these channels by NAPS).

The results of this exercise are written to the calibration table. They are also plotted in the calibration plot window (see calibration plot window for explanation).

Here the channel select string is taken into account ! You can select the good and bad channels for your calibrator.

Delete From Calibration Table

delete_from_cal_table.pro

Delete the current calibrator from the calibration table, if it exists in the table.

Create .ps Of Calibration Table: calibration_display_event.pro Create a postscript file of the calibration table data. The file name of the postscript file will be the file name of the calibration table followed by .ps.

Calibration process information

This window contains information (warnings etc.) about the current process.

Apply Current Calibration

apply_calibration.pro

Apply the calibration factors of the current calibration table to the current data. Each channel is multiplied by the set of calibration factors (8+4 channels) from the calibration table that is closest in time to the current observation. This can be different for different channels, as not all channels will have good calibration data for each observation! In this version, nothing is done with the calibration factor error.

De-apply Current Calibration

calibration_display_event.pro

De-apply any calibration of the current data. In fact, the current data is restored to its initial values (copy from channel_data_ori to the channel_data parameter).

Dismiss

calibration_display_event.pro

Dismiss the calibration tool, and kill the plot window if any. If any calibration table was loaded, this table will stay loaded in NCDRT.

Explanation on the calibration plot window

In this window the calibration factors for each channel as from the current calibration table are plotted and updated if any action is taken (new calibration data or deleting of calibration data). There are 8 sets of 2 frames. These correspond to the eight channels. The top frame of each set shows the entire calibration data for that channel, the lower frame shows a detail of that data only around the time of the current observation. A dotted vertical line indicates the position of the current observation time. If this time is out of the calibrator table range, the whole set is also plotted in the smaller frame.

In the first seven sets, the dashed line correspond to the average channels (9-15).

A cross means that the channel was not selected for the particular time.

If a new data file is loaded, while the calibration tool is active with calibration table loaded, then the calibration plot window is updated to show the time of the current observation.