1With this document, we try to collect all the useful code snipplets to help you 2using `Astrometry.net <http://astrometry.net/>`_, which will now be referred to 3by *AN*. While there is already some limited documentation around for quite 4specific aspects of all the components used, an overview helping a beginner to 5solve astronomical images was missing---until now. 6 7.. contents:: 8 9*********************************************** 10Building Your Local Astrometry.net Installation 11*********************************************** 12 13There are several ways to use the *AN* functionality: 14 15#. Build your own local installation; 16#. use one of the projects using it, eg. 17 18 - The Flickr Astro group, where all uploaded images are automatically 19 fetched and fed through the solver; 20 - `AstroTortilla <http://sourceforge.net/projects/astrotortilla/>`_, which 21 uses *AN* internally; 22 23#. or finally, you can use *AN*'s web service to process your images. 24 25This section will describe how to prepare a local installation by getting and 26building the source code. You'll need additional *index* files to actually 27solve images, but that will be described later. (They can be downloaded or 28prepared locally.) 29 30Getting the Source Code 31======================= 32The following examples always work on the *complete* SVN repository, though you 33only need the ``./src/astrometry/`` subdirectory. Thus, you'd always add that to 34save quite some bandwidth. 35 36Downloading Release Tarballs or Daily Snapshots 37----------------------------------------------- 38 39For details, please refer to the `AN Usage page 40<http://astrometry.net/use.html>`_. Snapshots as well as release tarballs can 41be found at `http://astrometry.net/downloads/ 42<http://astrometry.net/downloads/>`_. Please look at the file names carefully: 43Some contain version numbers, some SVN revision numbers. As usual, newer is 44better. Your choice! 45 46As the project currently (20140623) switches over to GitHub, you'll find 47all upcoming releases there, too, listed at 48`https://github.com/dstndstn/astrometry.net/releases <https://github.com/dstndstn/astrometry.net/releases>`_. 49 50Current Sources 51--------------- 52 53The current source tree is managed in GIT on GitHub. Anonymous users will clone 54from there:: 55 56 git clone https://github.com/dstndstn/astrometry.net.git 57 58while authenticated users (you need your SSH keys in place!) can clone with:: 59 60 git clone git@github.com:dstndstn/astrometry.net.git 61 62Historic SVN Tree 63----------------- 64 65With SVN 66^^^^^^^^ 67You can anonymously download the *AN* sources like this:: 68 69 svn co http://astrometry.net/svn/trunk astrometry 70 71If you have an account (with a few useful patches posted to the mailing 72list, you'll usually get one if you ask for it), you can of course fetch 73as an authenticated user and will be able to commit your changes:: 74 75 svn co svn+ssh://<username>@astrometry.net/svn/trunk astrometry 76 77With GIT-SVN 78^^^^^^^^^^^^ 79Anonymously, this is done by:: 80 81 git svn clone http://astrometry.net/svn/trunk astrometry 82 83As an authenticated user, you'd use:: 84 85 git svn clone svn+ssh://<username>@astrometry.net/svn/trunk astrometry 86 87Both variants will place a GIT-SVN converted copy of the whole repository into 88the local ``./astrometry/`` directory, which you can update with ``git svn 89rebase``. 90 91With commit rights (using authenticated access), you can also easily commit 92to SVN: Just commit them locally (ie. using ``git update-index``, ``git 93add``, ``git rm`` etc., finally followed by ``git commit`` to commit your 94changes) and then push them into the upstream SVN repository using ``git svn 95dcommit``. 96 97 98******************** 99Using Astrometry.net 100******************** 101 102With or without a local *AN* installation, you can use it to solve your 103astronomical images. It will accept `FITS <http://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/>`_ 104files as well as other commonly used digital image formats. You can even feed 105it with preprocessed (X,\ Y) coordinates you got other astronomical software 106stacks, like `SExtractor <http://sextractor.sourceforge.net/>`_. 107 108Astrometry.net Flickr Group 109=========================== 110 111We've a bot installed watching the `Astrometry Flickr Group 112<https://www.flickr.com/groups/astrometry>`_. Every image uploaded to this group 113will be solved automatically. Some comments will be added describing the image's location, 114rotation, and important objects found. 115 116Astrometry.net Web Service 117========================== 118 119You can upload your images to the `Nova Web Service 120<http://nova.astrometry.net/upload>`_ found at 121``http://nova.astrometry.net/upload``. Keep in mind that this is a public web 122service; others may see your captures. We're doing lots of work there, the 123service may be unstable from time to time. For every image, you'll find a page 124linking to all important files with the WCS solution etc. 125 126Local *AN* Installation 127======================= 128 129Other Projects Using Astrometry.net 130=================================== 131 132AstroTortilla 133------------- 134 135AstroTortilla (`SourceForge project page 136<http://sourceforge.net/projects/astrotortilla/>`_, `home page 137<http://sourceforge.net/p/astrotortilla/home/Home/>`_) is Windows software 138shipping a `Cygwin <https://www.cygwin.com/>`_ build of *AN*, which it uses 139internally. 140