Here is my quick introduction to useful IDL commands and to some of the mostly used procedures I wrote

(I hope that someone else will help to enhance this page).

The most useful IDL Websites and Documents

http://www.astro.washington.edu/deutsch/

Print a copy of the IDLastronlib list of procedures at

/net/xray/pub/idladd/idlastronlib/contents.txt

Most useful IDL commands

doc_library,'procedure name' - help on an individual procedure, showing text

between ;+ and ;- in the header. However, this

would not show anything for native IDL procedures

? - online help

retall - return to the main session of your IDL (e.g., after an error)

save - save the current parameters into a file (def=idlsave.dat)

restore - restore the parameters saved by the save command (def=idlsave.dat)

cd,'directory name' - change into a desirable directory on the disk

Type $ first to run a shell command within the IDL window.

A list of the most commonly used procedures I wrote

I have written hundreds of IDL procedures that deal almost all aspects of X-ray data analysis. Here is a list of the most commonly used ones that are relatively well tested and documented.

List and Image:

list_xray - read a list of counts from an event file

list_image - construct an image from the count list

cast - image reprojection

Astrometry:

The following four routines provides the basis for almost all

astrometry-related calculations and are accurate (routines in the

public astronlib have serious problems):

trans_radian - convert the RA and Dec into deg or radian

trans_degree - reverse of trans_radian

trans_dist - calculate the angular distance between two points in the sky

trans_loct - reverse of trans_dist

Fits:

get_fitshead - construct a fits header

Plot:

cont_grey - master program for plotting images

(contours and grey-scale)

source_plot - plot sources or any positions in the existing

cont_grey plot

scale_plot - plot a scale bar in the existing plot

cursor_posi - get cursor positions (RA and Dec) in an image displayed by cont_grey.pro

plot_box - plot an outline of a box in the existing plot

plot_circle - plot an outline of a circle in the existing plot

Color table:

color_save - save the current color table into a file

loadct_self - my owen color table (favorite, 16, 17, and 18)

Imaging processing:

adp_gs - Adaptive Gaussian Smoothing

Source analysis:

rbp - Obtain a radial brightness profile around a specified position in an image

fit_rbp - Chi^2 fit of a radial brightness profile with a PSF (yet to include the Chandra PSF).

Source info and subtraction:

source_info - read source parameters from my source detection programs

souce_sub_v - function that subtracts sources from an image