ALADIN(1)

📦 version 12.060, in debian bookworm, debian trixie, ubuntu jammy, ubuntu noble, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

okay bestie 🌌 this is the manual page for aladin, the Virtual Observatory sky atlas that makes your whole night sky look like a glow-up 🔭✨ it's giving ALADIN(1) energy, so let's get into it 💅

✨ NAME ✨

aladin - interactive software sky atlas 🌠

🪐 SYNOPSIS 🪐

aladin [options...] [filenames...]
aladin -hipsgen|-mocgen [-h] [options...]
aladin -help|-version

💫 DESCRIPTION 💫

okay so aladin is an interactive sky atlas for viewing astronomical images in the online Virtual Observatory (VO), made by the Centre de Données astronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS) 🌌 and lowkey it lets you layer entries from astronomical catalogues or databases right on top of remotely accessed data, fetched on demand ✨

it's also giving versatile 🦋 because aladin can open AND save a huge pile of image formats (FITS, HEALPix, JPEG/GIF/PNG/...) and table formats (FITS, VO-Table, CSV/TSV, S-extractor, IPAC-TBL, Skycat, ASCII, ...) 💖

this page is only about the command line parameters 💻 for the GUI stuff, check the Help menu once the program is started 🎀

✨ OPTIONS ✨

  • -help — show top-level help 🙋‍♀️
  • -version — display the Aladin release number 🏷️
  • -local — skip internet connectivity tests, aka off-line usage 📴
  • -screen=full|cinema|preview|frame — start in full-screen, cinema, preview, or other visual modes 🎬
  • -script=cmd1;cmd2;... — script commands passed right on the command-line 📜
  • -nogui — script-mode 🤖 no graphical user interface, no fuss. It's equivalent to -noplugin -nohub
  • -[no]hub — disable/enable starting the internal SAMP communications hub for sharing data with other astronomical applications 🤝
  • -[no]plugin — disable/enable plugin support 🧩

🐛 Debugging Options

  • -[no]beta — disable/enable features that are currently in beta-test 🧪
  • -[no]proto — disable/enable prototype features. Super useful for testing or when you're doing demos 🎪
  • -trace — debugging trace mode 🕵️‍♀️
  • -debug — debugging extra verbose mode 📢

🌈 HiPS command parameters

the -hipsgen command lets you generate Hierarchical Progressive Surveys (HiPS) from a script or the command line, no cap 🛰️ you can pass the options on the command line or drop them in a config file (param=configfile). For extra parameters, run aladin -hipsgen -h 👀

  • in=dir|file — source image directory (FITS or JPEG|PNG +hhh or HiPS), or a unique image or HEALPix map file. This one is required 🚨
  • out=dir — HiPS target directory (default $PWD+"HiPS") 📁
  • obs_title=name — name of the survey (by default, the input directory name) 🏷️
  • creator_did=id — HiPS identifier, syntax: [ivo://]AUTHORITY/internalID 🪪
  • hips_creator=name — name of the person or institute who builds the HiPS 👩‍🔬
  • hips_status=private|public clonable|clonableOnce|unclonable — HiPS status (default: public clonableOnce) 🔐
  • hdu=n1,n2-n3,...|all — list of HDU numbers. 0 is the primary HDU, and the default is 0 🔢
  • blank=nn — special BLANK value 🫥
  • skyval=key|auto|%info|%min %max — the FITS key used for removing a sky background, OR auto detection, OR the percents of the pixel histogram kept (central ex 99, or min max ex 0.3 99.7) 🌙
  • color=jpeg|png — the source images are colored (jpg or png) and the tiles will be produced in jpeg (resp. png) 🎨
  • shape=ellipse|rectangle — shape of the observations ⭕
  • border=... — margins (in pixels) to ignore in the original observations, as N W S E or a constant 🖼️
  • fov=true|x1,y1.. — observed regions by files.fov or a global polygon (in FITS convention) 🗺️
  • pilot=nnn — pilot test limited to the first nnn original images 🧪
  • verbose=n — debug information from -1 (nothing) to 4 (a LOT) 📣
  • -live — incremental HiPS, keeping the weight associated to each HiPS pixel 🌱
  • -f — clear previous computations 🧹
  • -n — just print process information, but do NOT execute it 🙅‍♀️

🌠 MOC command parameters

the -mocgen command generates the MOC (Multi Object Coverage Map) for a collection of images or WCS headers. A MOC is a coverage map based on the HEALPix sky tessellation 🗺️✨

the supported formats are: FITS files, MEF files, jpeg or png files (WCS header in the comment segment), .hhh files (FITS header files without pixels), and .txt simple ASCII files (FITS header as keyword = value basic ASCII lines) 📂

  • -v — verbose mode 📢
  • -strict — scan pixel values instead of using WCS image coverage 🔍
  • blank=value — alternate BLANK value (-strict only) 🫥
  • order=nn — MOC resolution (default 10 => 3.345') 📐
  • mocfmt=fits|json — MOC output format (default FITS) 📦
  • previous=moc.fits — previous MOC, if you're adding to it ➕
  • hdu=n1,n2-n3|all — list of the FITS extensions you care about 🔢
  • -r — recursive directory scanning 🔁
  • -o — output MOC updated continuously, instead of generated at the end ⏳
  • in=fileOrDir — directory of your images/headers collection 🗂️
  • out=outMoc.fits — output MOC file 💾
  • -d — debug trace 🕵️‍♀️

✨ DATA FORMATS ✨

aladin is able to process these file formats, and it's honestly so talented 👑

  • images — FITS (gzipped,RICE,MEF,...), HEALPix maps, JPEG,GIF,PNG 🖼️
  • tables — FITS, XML/VOTable, CSV, TSV, S-extractor, IPAC-TBL, Skycat or ASCII tables 📊
  • graphics — Aladin or IDL or DS9 regions, MOCs ✏️
  • directories — HiPS (Hierarchical Progressive Surveys) 📁
  • Aladin backups — files with the "*.aj" extension 💾
  • Aladin scripts — files with the "*.ajs" extension 📜

✨ AUTHORS ✨

the legends who made Aladin 🌈

Pierre Fernique did the Aladin Desktop core base & documentations 📚, Thomas Boch built many of the advanced Aladin Desktop features 🛠️, Anaïs Oberto brought RGB support and the HiPS prototypes 🎨, François Bonnarel handled Image calibration 📸, and Chaitra did the TAP,SIAv2 implementation 💜

the legal stuff 🧾 (but make it cute):

Copyright © 1999-2017 Universite de Strasbourg / Centre de Donnees astronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS/CNRS)

Aladin is free software 🕊️ you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, version 3 of the License.

if Aladin helped your research, a citation would be so appreciated 🙏 it goes like this: This research has made use of "Aladin sky atlas" developed at CDS, Strasbourg Observatory, France. 2000A&AS..143...33B and 2014ASPC..485..277B.

🏠 HOMEPAGE 🏠

http://aladin.u-strasbg.fr/

✨ SEE ALSO ✨

the user manual is available in PDF format, in french 🇫🇷 at http://aladin.u-strasbg.fr/java/AladinManuelV10.pdf

an older version is available in english 🇬🇧 at http://aladin.u-strasbg.fr/java/AladinManual6.pdf

that's the whole tea, bestie 🫶 this is the Dec 2017 edition of the ALADIN(1) page, so go map the sky like the astronomy queen you are 👑🌌💖

📦 where this page comes from