Montage Montage is an astronomical image toolkit with components for reprojection, background matching, coaddition and visualization of FITS files. It can be used as a set of command-line tools (Linux, OS X and Windows), C library calls (Linux and OS X) and as Python binary extension modules.

The Montage source is written in ANSI-C and code can be downloaded from GitHub ( https://github.com/Caltech-IPAC/Montage ). The Python package can be installed from PyPI ("</i>pip install MontagePy"). The package has no external dependencies. See http://montage.ipac.caltech.edu/ for details on the design and applications of Montage.

MontagePy.main modules: mProject

The Montage modules are generally used as steps in a workflow to create a mosaic of a set of input images. These steps are: determine the geometry of the mosaic on the sky, reproject the images to a common frame and spatial sampling; rectify the backgrounds to a common level, and coadd the images into a mosaic. This page illustrates the use of one Montage module, mProject, which is one of the modules used to reproject images.

Visit Building a Mosaic with Montage to see how mProject is used as part of a workflow to creage a mosaic (or the one shot version if you just want to see the commands). See the complete list of Montage Notebooks here.

from MontagePy.main import mProject, mViewer

help(mProject)

Help on built-in function mProject in module MontagePy.main:

mProject(...)
    mProject reprojects a single image to the scale defined in a FITS header template file. The program produces a pair of images: the reprojected image and an 'area' image consisting of the fraction input pixel sky area that went into each output pixel. The algorithm proceeds by mapping pixel corners (as adjusted by drizzle, if set) from the input pixel space to the output pixel space, calculating overlap area with each output pixel, and accumulating an appropriate fraction of the input flux into the output image pixels. In addition, the appropriate fraction of the input pixel area is accumulated into the area image pixels. Projection of points from input pixel space to output pixel space is calculated in two steps: first map from input pixel space to sky coordinates; second map from sky coordinates to output pixel space.
    
    Parameters
    ----------
    input_file : str
        FITS file to reproject.
    output_file : str
        Reprojected FITS file.
    template_file : str
        FITS header file used to define the desired output.
    hdu : int, optional
        Optional HDU offset for input file.
    weight_file : str, optional
        Optional pixel weight FITS file (must match input).
    fixedWeight : float, optional
        A weight value used for all pixels.
    threshold : float, optional
        Pixels with weights below this level treated as weight 0.
    borderstr : str, optional
        Single border width number or pixel polygon pair list for masking.
    drizzle : float, optional
        Optional pixel area 'drizzle' factor.
    fluxScale : float, optional
        Scale factor applied to all pixels.
    energyMode : bool, optional
        Pixel values are total energy rather than energy density.
    expand : bool, optional
        Expand output image area to include all of the input pixels.
    fullRegion : bool, optional
        Do not 'shrink-wrap' output area to non-blank pixels.
    debug : int, optional
        Debugging output level.
    
    
    Returns
    -------
    status : int
        Return status (0: OK, 1:ERROR).
    msg : str
        Return message (for errors).
    time : float
        Total processing time (sec).

mProject Example

mProject is one of four modules focused on the task of reprojecting an astronomical image. It is totally general (any projection and coordinate system) and flux-conserving but is also the slowest. The algorithm is based on pixel overlap in spherical sky coordinates rather than in the input or output planar pixel space.

mProject has a number of extra controls for things like toggling from the normal flux-density mode to total energy mode or excluding a border (image borders often have bad pixels). But the basic inputs are a FITS image and a FITS header describing the output image we want. In all cases, the only output is a FITS image with the data from the input resampled to the output header pixel space.

The input FITS header (actually an ASCII file that looks like a FITS header but with newlines and unpadded line lengths) can be produced in a number of ways. There are Montage tools to take an image list (or point source list) and determine a bounding box (mMakeHdr) or just a location and size (mHdr). You can also pull the header off another file (mGetHdr) if you want to build a matching mosaic from other data. Or you can just create the output header by hand (e.g., a simple all-sky Aitoff projection).

Here we have pulled the header from the input image and edited it by hand to modify the rotation by 30 degrees.

rtn = mProject('M17/raw/2mass-atlas-990502s-j1340186.fits', 
               'work/M17/2mass-atlas-990502s-j1340186_project.fits', 
               'M17/rotated.hdr')
print(rtn)

{'status': '0', 'time': 218.0}

Before and After

Here are the original image and the reprojected one:

from IPython.display import Image

rtn = mViewer("-ct 1 -gray M17/raw/2mass-atlas-990502s-j1340186.fits \
               -2s max gaussian-log -out work/M17/2mass-atlas-990502s-j1340186.png",
              "", mode=2)
print(rtn)

Image(filename='work/M17/2mass-atlas-990502s-j1340186.png')

{'status': '0', 'type': b'grayscale', 'nx': 512, 'ny': 1024, 'grayminval': 142.85527071691192, 'grayminpercent': 0.0, 'grayminsigma': -2.0, 'graymaxval': 8543.951171875, 'graymaxpercent': 100.0, 'graymaxsigma': 2225.7597600568683, 'blueminval': 0.0, 'blueminpercent': 0.0, 'blueminsigma': 0.0, 'bluemaxval': 0.0, 'bluemaxpercent': 0.0, 'bluemaxsigma': 0.0, 'greenminval': 0.0, 'greenminpercent': 0.0, 'greenminsigma': 0.0, 'greenmaxval': 0.0, 'greenmaxpercent': 0.0, 'greenmaxsigma': 0.0, 'redminval': 0.0, 'redminpercent': 0.0, 'redminsigma': 0.0, 'redmaxval': 0.0, 'redmaxpercent': 0.0, 'redmaxsigma': 0.0, 'graydatamin': 143.695556640625, 'graydatamax': 8543.951171875, 'bdatamin': 0.0, 'bdatamax': 0.0, 'gdatamin': 0.0, 'gdatamax': 0.0, 'rdatamin': 0.0, 'rdatamax': 0.0, 'flipX': 0, 'flipY': 1, 'colortable': 1, 'bunit': b''}

rtn = mViewer("-ct 1 -gray work/M17/2mass-atlas-990502s-j1340186_project.fits \
               -2s max gaussian-log -out work/M17/2mass-atlas-990502s-j1340186_project.png",
              "", mode=2)
print(rtn)

Image(filename='work/M17/2mass-atlas-990502s-j1340186_project.png')

{'status': '0', 'type': b'grayscale', 'nx': 949, 'ny': 1142, 'grayminval': 142.85922821780923, 'grayminpercent': 0.0, 'grayminsigma': -2.0, 'graymaxval': 8297.618992713538, 'graymaxpercent': 100.0, 'graymaxsigma': 2141.72617612838, 'blueminval': 0.0, 'blueminpercent': 0.0, 'blueminsigma': 0.0, 'bluemaxval': 0.0, 'bluemaxpercent': 0.0, 'bluemaxsigma': 0.0, 'greenminval': 0.0, 'greenminpercent': 0.0, 'greenminsigma': 0.0, 'greenmaxval': 0.0, 'greenmaxpercent': 0.0, 'greenmaxsigma': 0.0, 'redminval': 0.0, 'redminpercent': 0.0, 'redminsigma': 0.0, 'redmaxval': 0.0, 'redmaxpercent': 0.0, 'redmaxsigma': 0.0, 'graydatamin': 143.87211172653642, 'graydatamax': 8297.618992713538, 'bdatamin': 0.0, 'bdatamax': 0.0, 'gdatamin': 0.0, 'gdatamax': 0.0, 'rdatamin': 0.0, 'rdatamax': 0.0, 'flipX': 0, 'flipY': 1, 'colortable': 1, 'bunit': b''}