Please read these instructions slowly and carefully!
http://www.lewcook.net/LewAAVSOfmtPlt.htm
The most important thing you need to do is to save this Workbook under a unique name that you will henceforth use as your master copy. I'd suggest "MasterAAVSOPlot.xls" . DO IT NOW!!
"This Workbook is intended for multiple observations of ONE variable star and a single Comparison star and a checK star on ONE night in ONE color, but it has been expanded to accommodate multiple nights' data. You might ask ""But I have data in MORE THAN ONE COLOR! How do I handle that??"" Relatively easily, I'd say.
BEFORE you Copy and Paste Special into Lew's AAVSO Format Plotting spreadsheet you will need to SORT (A to Z) on the FILTER column BY FOLLOWING THIS PROCEDURE:
Highlight Column A on the spreadsheet YOU made for importing your data into Lew's AAVSO Format Plotting Spreadsheet. It has all your data.
INSERT a COLUMN to the left of Column A on that.
Copy the FILTER column into that new column (now COLUMN A).
Make sure the data in the rest of the rows in the new column is the same as before.
Highlight all your data Col. A thru Column P (you now have an additional Column after you inserted a new column). Start with Column A. Now SORT A-Z. This carries the data in ALL Rows in the same order as before, left to right, but the data is NOW in groups of each filter.
Now, delete the copied filter column (Col. A). Your observations are sorted by filter. Make a copy of each filter's observations to a separate spreadsheet and copy each sheet of them into its own Copy of Lew's AAVSO Format Plotter Workbook.
Save as ""R~RULupiOCT13.xls"" or ""V~RULupiOCT13.xls"" or some other meaningful name you choose."
Multiple nights data for that star CAN be combined, but separate spreadsheets will allow better presentation in the plots, or you can insert a sheet, click just inside the plot you want copied, click Copy and then Click Paste in the new sheet and reformat the X axis. It will be the same type plot. You may do this multiple times, once for each night.
MUCH of this WORKBOOK is LOCKED (without password). When you have data you need to examine, I suggest you begin with a Workbook copied from your master copy.
A note to conserve memory and size of this Workbook:
You may DELETE THE ROWS BELOW THE LAST LINE OF YOUR DATA on AAVSO Data sheet, but you will need to UNPROTECT THE SHEET before deleting the rows.
Special note for EU users: Because AAVSO Extended Format input data may be interpreted by Excel as TEXT, you need to alter the format of the input files! First do a GLOBAL REPLACEMENT IN a text processing program (such as MS Notebook). Search for all commas, (,) and replace them with semicolons (;). Then, replace all period points (.) with COMMAS (,). This workbook takes data in PSEUDO AAVSO format, vis:
#NAME;DATE;MAG;MERR;FILT;TRANS;MTYPE;CNAME;CMAG;KNAME;KMAG;AMASS;GROUP;CHART;NOTES
IK HYA;2456756,54749;10,297; 0,004;V;NO;STD;UCAC4 312-067203;17,127;UCAC4 312-067179;18,905;1,18;na;UCAC4;Standard mag: C = 10,238 K = 11,986
REQUIRED STEPS BEFORE IMPORTING YOUR DATA
1. OPEN your data file -a text file- in Excel (or equivalent spreadsheet software)
using the ""Text Import Wizard"".
"
2. Click on the "Delimited" button.
3. Start import at top Row.
4. Click "Next".
5. Check "Semicolon" and uncheck "Tab".
6. Check "Finished".
7. SAVE this as a spreadsheet, e.g. Oct2013RULup.xls . The name should include the date and star observed at a minimum.
Now look at your spreadsheet. Horrifying, isn't it? All the dates are truncated, as are the CNAME and KNAME.
The numbers you so carefully measured don't even line up in uniform columns.
DON'T WORRY, THIS IS GOING TO BE CORRECTED!
8. OPEN your master copy of Lew's AAVSOformatPlot.xls workbook AND SAVE IT UNDER A DIFFERENT NAME, e.g. 'RULupi20131031V.xls'
9. NOW, in the finished spreadsheet, SELECT ALL THE HEADER AND DATA CELLS, Cell A1 through O 4018 (if you have that much data).
If less, stop at Cell O in the last row. If more, find a good spot to break and start another spreadsheet name it 'RULupi20131031Vb.xls' .
10. Copy it.
11. Switch to your just saved copy of Lew's AAVSOformatPlot.xls, e.g. 'RULupi10-31-2013V.xls' . OPEN the AAVSO Data sheet.
12. Select Cell A9 on the AAVSO Data sheet, click Paste Special, Click "Values", Click "OK".
There are 4 lines of bogus data in the master copy, Rows 18 - 21.
These are there to prevent error messages from Excel for all of the plots.
PASTE OVER THESE ROWS! THEY ARE UNWANTED AND UNNECESSARY EXCEPT TO SATISFY MINDLESS MACHINES!
13. Wait!! There's still something to do. In Cell P8 you need to type in the Comparison star magnitude. For reasons I have not yet determined, the EU version of this Workbook MAY interpret the decimal point (,) as a thousands separator and give a result like 14,686,000. Do not worry, I fixed this error by testing the magnitude of the Comp star. If > 500 I divided it by 1000.
IF you have 2 different Comp stars, the plots will be quirky. Not all of them, but the ones for the
RAW DATA PLOT, COMP AND CHECK stars, DATA PLOT, K-C and C,K vs. Air Mass depend on consistency.
The linear regression lines and equations for C vs. Air Mass, K vs. Air Mass, and K-C vs Air Mass will be invalid if either (or both) stars were changed.
A suggestion: Make another Workbook when you changed the C star.
PROBLEMS MOVING THE DATA TO THE Workbook (formerly known as) MasterAAVSOPlot.xls ?
The HEADER is limited to 9 lines. If you've got more than that, delete ROWS. If fewer, INSERT BLANK ROWS (where you wish) in the header.
First, SELECT all the data and headers you have - up to 4010 lines of data and headers
Next, COPY all that data from the workbook.
Have fewer or more columns? AAVSO requires 15 columns. Col. B is JD, C is variable measurement, D is MERR, I is Comp and K is Check measure
and L is Airmass. Add blank columns or delete unused columns ON THE TEXT IMPORT SPREADSHEET and repeat Steps 7-13 ABOVE
Switch to a new copy of the workbook and PASTE (special) all the info into cell A9 .
You MAY just paste just the data without headers but you need to Click Cell A18
and then PASTE (Special) all your copied data (without headers), but I'd not recommend that.
Look OK now? If not, you may not have done something right. Go back and re-do Steps 1 - 12. If you still can't figure it out, take a deep breath, get a refreshing beverage, and email lew@lewcook.com . Explain precisely what you did and what the problem is.
WHAT DOES THIS (OVERLY COMPLICATED) WORKBOOK DO?
First, it produced 14 plots:
1. LIGHT CURVE
IF the plot has a lot of blank area above the curve, or you want to have individual plots all with the same scale, you need to adjust the vertical axis scale. To do this, RIGHT CLICK any of the numbers on the Vertical Axis Scale. A window pops up. At the bottom of the list, Click "Format Axis," yet another panel, Click "Axis Options," "Minimum" and choose "Fixed" and type in the brightest data you want plotted. Give it a little space so you don't lose any data points.
I use 0.1 magnitude less than the brightest data point. If you NOW have extra space at the bottom you want to reduce, the next line is for the Maximum value.
Do the same thing for constraining the right vertical axis or the horizontal axis values. Remember to give extra space for the faintest point, and ADD a fudge factor to the amount you type.
You can do similar things for other plots. If you have data from different nights on the same plot, you can adjust the horizontal axis (yet) in a similar manner. However, you won't be able to close the gaps during periods when you don't have data. You could add extra sheets and put a plot for each night by choosing an appropriate X axis range for each night.
2. RAW DATA PLOT
This plots out the Instrumental Variable Star measures plus the instrumental Comparison and checK Star measures against time. In this you will see all changes due to any factors - clouds, weather, airmass, or intrinsic fading and brightening of all the stars. This plots out the INSTRUMENTAL Variable Star data plus the INSTRUMENTAL Comparison and checK Star measures against time. If you changed exposure times for the star - perhaps as it got brighter or fainter, this plot will have discontinuites. Gaps in the data because of weather or dayight intervening will show up in the EXPOSURE INTERVALS PLOT. This plot is shown on a logarithmic scale.
3. COMP AND CHECK vs. (JD).
This plots out the Comparison and Check stars raw data on the time axis. This is a good tool for you to see how clouds in the atmosphere affected your data.
Pronounced dips in both curves suggest that there was smoke or clouds crossing your field during the observing run. This will cause the computed linear regression of magnitudes vs. airmass to be WRONG, so do not use these values for any purpose! If you need accurate values of the extinction coefficients when the clouds were absent SAVE a COPY of this Workbook under a DIFFERENT NAME, e.g. RULupiXCloud.xls.
In this Copy, examine the Comp and checK plot to find when the clouds were there.
DELETE the affected ROWS in the copy of the workbook used exclusively for that purpose.
Here, in this new Workbook, make your computations!
The DATA for the whole night may be acceptable when both the variable and the comparison are equally affected. This is why we plot the K-C values against time (JD) - to check for acceptability.
4. DATA PLOT which plots the Variable Star, Cstd and calculated K magnitudes against JD.
A few words about the ADJUSTMENTS: To display the graphed data with clarity, some adjustments may be needed.
First, the data is reviewed and the brightest Variable or Check measurement is found. THEN, a tenth of a magnitude is SUBTRACTED to give a bit more space on the top of plot. This is in Cell P1. This is your suggested Vertical Axis Minimum. A similar method is used for the maximum.
Confused by that? Cstd is the ASSUMED value of the Comparison star. First the measured C value is subtracted from the measured K value. THEN, the standard Comparison star value is ADDED back to the MEASURED K-C value, giving a calculated K magnitude. The scatter lets you see how good (or bad) your data is.
This workbook finds a value equal to the brightest V or K measurement and subtracts 0.1 magnitude truncating it to the nearest 0.1 magnitude. This means a measured brightest value of 14.99 will have a recommended Vertical Axis minimum value of 14.8.
When plotting the K-C+Cstd values, they may be less than the variable value.
This is done to allow you to examine your data in advance of releasing it. You can choose to move the plot of the K-C+Cstd up or down, to get it closer to (or away from) the variable plot by adjusting the RIGHT axis scale on the RAW DATA PLOT or the DATA PLOT. Instructions are explained ABOVE. It is useful to have the ranges of the left and right axes equivalent.
The measured K-C plus the known value of the Comparison star, called Cstd (entered manually BY YOU in Cell P8) produces your measure of K, in the typical C-K manner, is plotted. IF the plot of the K values crosses the Variable plot, OR lies too far above or below that plot, you should adjust it up or down.
Do this by adjusting the Axis scale(s) on the left (and/or right) of the plot.
5. K-C curve
See the note under the Light Curve Plot listing and adjust the vertical axis to display the plots with the maximum scale useful.
6. Air Mass vs. JD
If you took data in a continuous set, this should be a nice looking, smooth curve. The theoretical minimum for air mass is 1. The maximum recommended air mass for observations is around 2.5.
7. The instrumental C and K measurements plotted against Air Mass (with regression lines and R squared).
Do not fear you have bad data if there is a steady slope, usually down, as Airmass increases. This is due to absorption of light as it passes through more air. This is what Airmass is a measure of. Use the slope of the curves to get the Extinction Coefficient.
DO NOT USE THESE VALUES IF THERE IS SUBSTANTIAL DEPARTURE FROM LINEARITY, i.e. the plots are not smooth, you think the C or K star may be varying, or if clouds were present! The intercept on the magnitude (Y) axis (the first number in the regression equation) gives an instrumental magnitude. How much difference between the instrumental system and actual mags can be calculated by subtracting the instrumental mag from the known magnitude. This should be similar for both stars.
8. K-C vs Air Mass
The need for this plot became apparent as I was preparing the web page. You can use it to see if there is a relative color term in either one or the other's extinction coefficients. This will also be evident (if the night was cloud free) in the C and K versus air mass plot. The value of this plot is that clouds are (for the most part) gray. They dim stars of all colors equally.
9. MERR vs. JD
This plot shows you WHEN an increase (if any) in Magnitude error occurred. This helps you find the affected observations in AAVSO DATA.
10. MERR vs. Comp Instrumental Mag
If there were no clouds this fourth MERR plot (MERR vs. Comparison star mag.) should be flat, or nearly so, provided the variable wasn't fading at the same time. If you had clouds, then as the Comp star fades due to clouds, the error may (probably will) increase.
11. MERR vs. MAG (of the Variable)
If the increase was largely due to the variable becoming faint, then the third plot error will show MERR increases as MAG Increases. Unless the errors are extreme,
PLEASE DO NOT DELETE OBSERVATIONS merely because the STAR IS FAINT so your OBSERVATIONS have HIGHER ERRORS !!
That data is often the most valuable, and certainly should be included. This frequently happens and normally is found in data sets.
12. MERR v Instrumental Var. Mag.
This plot demonstrates the effects of the faintness of the variable star, along with clouds, haze, smoke and high airmass on Mag. ERRor. Any changes in exposure times will make this plot disjointed.
13. MERR vs. Airmass
IF MERR increases due to an increase in Airmass (which will be greatest in U and least in IR), it would also show up in the Comparison and checK star values. The slope of the regression line in C,K vs. Airmass plot gives you an estimate of the extinction coefficient (usually less than 0.4 mag per unit of Airmass for V, and much less in good skies). Light in U, B, V, Rc and Ic have (in that order) decreasing values for the extinction coefficients.
14. Time Interval Since Last Observation
This plot shows (on a logarithmic scale) the intervals (in seconds) between the time recorded between the consecutive exposure times. Because the duration of the exposure is not available in the AAVSO Extended Data Format, this was chosen as a visual reminder for YOU to examine the changes in exposure times. The plots which display Instrumental magnitudes (charts 2, 3, 7, 10 and 12 ) may show discontinuities due to changes in exposure length. This plot is only for your reference! NEVER PUBLISH THIS PLOT!!
IMPORTANT NOTICE AND DISCLAIMER:
If you have problems with this software, LET LEW KNOW at lew@lewcook.com .
You, the user, take full responsibility for the use of this Workbook. It is released without any knowledge that it contains any virus or other defect which could harm any computer. If you find it useful to you, please let others who may be interested know about it. It has been prepared and freely distributed in the hope that it will be useful to the astronomical community. If you find it useful to you, please let others who may be interested know about it. You may not sell it, but you may give it away freely.
All Lew's lewcook.com and lewcook.net deliverables are provided “as is” without warranty of any kind, express or implied. Lew, CBA Concord, CBA Pahala, lewcook.com and lewcook.net make no warranty as to the adequacy of any software or its documentation to produce any result. In no event shall Lew, lewcook.com or lewcook.net or Lew, the author of this software or its documentation, be liable to you for any loss including loss of hardware, data, profits or reputation that arise from use of this software or its documentation. In no circumstance shall the liability of Lew, lewcook.com and lewcook.net exceed the purchase price of this software, which is ZERO, NADA, NIL, FREE, GRATIS, NO CHARGE, and NOTHING.
End of Instructions, folks. There were a lot of them! Now enter your data ...