July 24

I spent another day working to improve my hastrom images. Because IDL does not let you manipulate JPEGs with most filtering commands, I need to do the filtering to each layer of data as FITS files. I discovered several different techniques that I used in varying degrees and orders to try to reduce background noise. Most work well on the Optical, but because the UV is so scattered it is very difficult to separate the important data from the noise. Once I find the best way to do this, and get Jake's approval, I will begin writing a program that will go through the steps (there are many) so that I and the other interns can just run their galaxies through the program to refine their images without spending hours repeating commands. At least that is the plan right now, things often change around here. So yeah, I spent the day researching and fiddling with IDL, and have five or six potential products to show for it, hopefully Jake will like one of them...