Input types

SwiftPhotom can deal with inputs in different formats. Below you can find details about each of them.

Swift Data Structure

The package works on pre-processed files that can be downloaded directly from the Swift archive. Data from the archive usually come in a single compressed file. Once unpacked, there will be a folder for each ObsID queried. An ObsID is an 11 digits unique number, composed by a 8 digits Target_ID and a 3 digits sequential Obs_segment. As the name suggests, Target_IDs are unique to each Swift target (although one target can have multiple Target_IDs), while the Obs_segment increase with the amount of data collected for a target.

Each ObsID folder will have a structure similar to this:

[ObsID]
  |--auxil
  |--xrt
  |--uvot
    |--hk
    |--products
    |--images
      |--sw[ObsID]u[filter1]_ex.img.gz
      |--sw[ObsID]u[filter1]_rw.img.gz
      |--sw[ObsID]u[filter1]_sk.img.gz
      |--[...]
      |--sw[ObsID]u[filterN]_ex.img.gz
      |--sw[ObsID]u[filterN]_rw.img.gz
      |--sw[ObsID]u[filterN]_sk.img.gz

depending what files you downloaded from the Swift archive. The SwiftPhotom package works on the *_sk.img.gz files, so the User will have to isolate them. This can done in 2 ways, manually, or by providing the Target_ID.

WARNING - although it is not necessary to keep the tree structure described above, the scripts will work only on files that ends with ``_sk.img.gz`` (or ``_sk.img``), so be aware of this if the User plans to rename them.

Target_ID

The Target_ID can be provided as a single input, like the following example:

Swift_photom_host.py 13612

The script will search in the working folder, and in all the subfolders, for files in the form sw[Target_ID]*_sk.img.gz (or also not compressed), and work on all of them. The script will automatically add leading zeros to make the Target_ID 8 digits long so both 13612 and 00013612 will work. Be carefull not to include also the Obs_segment, as it will not work. Moreover, any file renaming will likely prevent the script to recognize the correct files.

List of files

The User can list all the _sk.img.gz files into a text file, and use the name of this latter file as the input to the script. If the files are not in the current working directory, the relative path must be provided (or alternatively, the full path). If the User is running the script from a top folder with all the ObsID folder inside, and the Swift default tree structure is maintained, all the correct files can be quickly included in a text file by

ls */uvot/image/sw*_sk.img.gz > obj.lst

then all your images will be listed inside the obj.lst text file (the name and extension here are not important), which will look something like this

    00013612001/uvot/image/sw00013612001uw1_sk.img.gz
00013612001/uvot/image/sw00013612001uw2_sk.img.gz
03105174001/uvot/image/sw03105174001uuu_sk.img.gz
03105174001/uvot/image/sw03105174001uw1_sk.img.gz

The script will be run simply by:

Swift_photom_host.py obj.lst

This method is more versatile than using the Target_ID, as it allows to be more selective with the epochs and filters to analyse, i.e. by including or removing files from the text files. Moreover, renaming files can also be possible, as long as the *_sk.img.gz (or *_sk.img) extension is kept.

List of files and Target_ID

The list file can also contain multiple Target_IDs, or a combination of files and Target_IDs. The following list file is a valid input.

    00013612001/uvot/image/sw00013612001uw1_sk.img.gz
00013612001/uvot/image/sw00013612001uw2_sk.img.gz
3105174