Provided by: montage_6.1+dfsg-1build1_amd64 
NAME
mCoverageCheck - Filter an image metadata table down to those records representing FITS files that
overlap a footprint on the sky
SYNOPSIS
mCoverageCheck [-s statusfile] in.tbl out.tbl -mode <parameters>
DESCRIPTION
mCoverageCheck can be used to subset an image metadata table (containing FITS/WCS information or image
corners) by determining which records in the table represent images that overlap with a region definition
(box or circle in the sky) given on the command line.
OPTIONS
-s statusfile
Output and errors are sent to statusfile instead of to stdout
-mode Can be one of:
points (used to describe a convex polygon) box circle header (area is described in a header file)
point (find images that overlap one particular point on the sky) cutout (operates like box mode,
but returns metadata that represents what the input images would look like after being subset to
exactly match the cutout area)
in.tbl Input metadata table.
out.tbl
Output metadata table, to contain subset of in.tbl.
parameters
Depends on mode as following:
points: ra1 dec1 ra2 dec2 ... raN decN (must be at least 3 vertices) box: ra dec xsize [ysize
[rotation]]
where ra, dec is the center of the box, and size is in degrees. circle: ra dec radius
where ra, dec is the center of the circle, and radius is in degrees (default is 0, in which case
it's treated like a point search). point: ra dec header: region.hdr (path to an ASCII header
template that defines the region of interest) cutout: ra dec xsize [ysize]
where ra, dec is the center of the cutout area, and size is in degrees.
RESULT
The output file out.tbl is created, with nimages records.
MESSAGES
OK [struct stat="OK", count=n]
ERROR Cannot open status file: statusfile
ERROR Invalid region definition mode: string
ERROR Too few vertices for region (must be at least three)
ERROR Longitude n (string) cannot be interpreted as a real number
ERROR Latitude n (string) cannot be interpreted as a real number
ERROR Failed to find bounding polygon for points
ERROR Too few arguments for box or cutout (must at least have center and size)
ERROR Center RA string (string) cannot be interpreted as a real number
ERROR Center Dec string (string) cannot be interpreted as a real number
ERROR X box size string (string) cannot be interpreted as a real number
ERROR X box size (string) must be a positive number
ERROR Y box size string (string) cannot be interpreted as a real number
ERROR Y box size (string) must be a positive number
ERROR Box rotation string (string) cannot be interpreted as a real number
ERROR Must give header file name
ERROR Failed to find bounding polygon for points
ERROR Too few arguments for circle (must at least have center)
ERROR Circle radius string (string) cannot be interpreted as a real number
ERROR Too few arguments for point (must have coordinates)
ERROR Point RA string (string) cannot be interpreted as a real number
ERROR Point Dec string (string) cannot be interpreted as a real number
ERROR Error opening table filename
ERROR Cannot create output file filename
ERROR Need either WCS or corner columns.
ERROR Failed to create wcs structure for record n
EXAMPLES
As input, we use this table of 2MASS atlas images. The images in this table are in two "clumps" on the
sky: 3 overlapping images separated by several degrees from the other 12 overlapping images. Here we
will show several ways of isolating the group of 3 images.
$ mCoverageCheck images.tbl circle.tbl -circle 262.78208 -35.03049 1.0
[struct stat="OK", count="3"]
$ mCoverageCheck images.tbl box.tbl -box 262.84948 -34.81197 1.0
[struct stat="OK", count="3"]
$ mCoverageCheck images.tbl points.tbl -points 263.3796 -34.48881 262.15127 -34.51032 262.90267 -35.38753
[struct stat="OK", count="3"]
$ mCoverageCheck images.tbl point.tbl -point 262.78208 -35.03049
[struct stat="OK", count="3"]
Each of these methods results in this output table containing only 3 records out of the original 15.
BUGS
The drizzle algorithm has been implemented but has not been tested in this release.
If a header template contains carriage returns (i.e., created/modified on a Windows machine), the cfitsio
library will be unable to read it properly, resulting in the error: [struct stat="ERROR", status=207,
msg="illegal character in keyword"]
It is best for the background correction algorithms if the area described in the header template
completely encloses all of the input images in their entirety. If parts of input images are "chopped off"
by the header template, the background correction will be affected. We recommend you use an expanded
header for the reprojection and background modeling steps, returning to the originally desired header
size for the final coaddition. The default background matching assumes that there are no non-linear
background variations in the individual images (and therefore in the overlap differences). If there is
any uncertainty in this regard, it is safer to turn on the "level only" background matching (the "-l"
flag in mBgModel.
COPYRIGHT
2001-2015 California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California
If your research uses Montage, please include the following acknowledgement: "This research made use of
Montage. It is funded by the National Science Foundation under Grant Number ACI-1440620, and was
previously funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Earth Science Technology Office,
Computation Technologies Project, under Cooperative Agreement Number NCC5-626 between NASA and the
California Institute of Technology."
The Montage distribution includes an adaptation of the MOPEX algorithm developed at the Spitzer Science
Center.
Montage 5 Dec 2016 MCOVERAGECHECK(1)