Hi, It's not always safe to get "XCEN", "YCEN" information directly from EIS fits (main) header. Here are some suggestions (according to emails between Ignacio U., Ken D., Viggo H. and John M.): 1. use the fits bte header (ie the data_object methods) {{{ IDL> fname='eis_l0_20070320_030501.fits.gz' IDL> obj=obj_new('eis_data',fname) IDL> xpos=obj->getxpos() IDL> ypos=obj->getypos() IDL> xcen=total([max(xpos),min(xpos)])/2. IDL> ycen=total([max(ypos),min(ypos)])/2. IDL> print,xcen,ycen 21.4457 -976.781 }}} 2. use methods provided by the hdr_object {{{ IDL> fname='eis_l0_20070320_030501.fits.gz' IDL> hdr=obj_new('fits_hdr',fname) IDL> xcen=hdr->getxcen_ti1(/offset) IDL> ycen=hdr->getycen_ti1(/offset) IDL> print,xcen,ycen 21.410865 -976.24575 }}} 3. I wrote a simple wrapped idl program called "[eis_getpinfo.pro|FitsPointing/eis_getpinfo.pro]" to extract pointing information from EIS fits file (ie no need to read full fits file) {{{ IDL> fname='eis_l0_20070320_030501.fits.gz' IDL> eispointing=eis_getpinfo(fname) IDL> print,eispointing 21.410865 -976.24575 583.06600 512.00000 The values mean: [XCEN, YCEN, FOVX, FOVY] (unit: arcsec) }}} Hope this helps. :) Any comments? [JianSun] [{CurrentTimePlugin}] ---- Hi, Jian Thanks for doing this! Really useful not to have to read a whole FITS file -- especially the [huge files we recently discussed|~BigEISFitsFiles]! On a point of refinement -- and this is something we should consider in the team meeting in October -- I'm not sure that we can really speak of a single EIS pointing. The reason I say this is the [North-South offset of about 20"|~CCDOffset] between the two wavelength channels, and also the [1" East-West offset|~CCDOffsetX] between them. In a sense, each wavelength channel has its ''own'' pointing. But perhaps this is factored into your routine already? Does [EIS_PREP|~DataAnalysisRoutines] correct for these offsets? --[David R Williams|~DavidRWilliams], 26-Sep-2007 ---- Hi David, Your comments are valuable. Thanks. I don't think [EIS_PREP|~DataAnalysisRoutines] corrects these offsets, people have to do it by themself manually. Here’s a summary: 1. The pointing information in eis fits header is for LW CCD only. {{{Note that the heliocentric coordinates stored in the fits headers and returned by the EIS software apply to the long wavelength band, not the short wavelength band. This is because the He II 256 line was used to co-align with the SOT data.}}} 2. Images on SW CCD are 16-20" (or pixels) higher (ie. in %%(color:#990000;)Y-direction%% towards north pole) than LW CCD. {{{This may vary with wavelength}}} 3. Images on SW CCD are 2" (or pixels) righter (ie. in %%(color:#990000;)X-direction%% towards solar-west limb) than LW CCD. {{{The fact is that the two CCD images arise from different halves of the primary mirror. The focal points of the two mirror halves could thus be different.}}} There is a preliminary report from Deb (MSSL) to show the shifts between SW & LW CCDs and XRT. The fits file has 22 lines: 8 lines in SW CCD and 14 lines in LW CCD: Y shifts (arcsec): _[20,20,20,20,20,19,19,19_] (SW) [4,2,2,2,3,0,0,1,1,1,0,0,0.5,3] (LW) X shifts (arcsec): [0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0.5] (SW) [3,3,1,1,1,3,0,1,1,2,3,3,2,1] (LW)