SuperCOSMOS
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We have two local programs that let you download stuff directly with command-line instructions without going to the web pages:

/home/mjd/bin/geturl_cat    -catalogue queries
/home/mjd/bin/geturl_image  -image downloads

CATALOGUE
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The options are as follows

ra - in J2000 or B1950 colon separated 23:22:10.1
dec - in J2000 or B1950 colon separated -23:22:10.1
equinox - 1 or 2 equinox of supplied RA/DEC 1=B1950 2=J2000 default is set
to J2000
outequinox - 1 or 2 equinox of outputted coords 1=B1950 2=J2000 default is
set to J2000
waveband - 1-5 primary waveband 1=UKJ 2=UKR 3=UKI 4=ESOR 5=PAE default is
UKJ
x - size of extracted area in RA in arcmins muber be > 0.02
y - size of extracted are in DEC in acrmin, if 0 or not set, circle of
radius x extracted
bright - bright mag limit default set to 0.0
faint - faint mag limit default set to 25
outepoch - epoch of output positions default=0.0 which means ecpoch
           of plate i.e. not corrected.
purge - 1=objects purged in overlap regions,0=all objects kept, default 1
subset - 1=susbet of parameters output 0=full parameters output, default 1
blend - 0-3 deafult is 0
        0 Discard parent images of deblends
        1 Discard child images of deblends
        2 Include parent and child images of deblends
        3 Keep only unblended images (ie. discard parents & children)
quality - objects with quality > value not extracted default 2047
pair - pairing radius 3 or 6 arcsec default=3
calib - calibration 1- colour corret 0-no corrcetion default is 1
      new options will be enabled to calibrate everything as galaxies etc
form - 1-3 1=ascii 2=tab list 3=fits table default=1
plot - if yes gives ps finder

unless values are supplied defaults are assumed so

geturl_cat "ra=00:00:00&dec=-65:00:00&x=1" > out.txt

would be the simplest incantation.
s are assumed so


geturl_cat "ra=00:00:00&dec=-65:00:00&x=1&plot=yes" > out.ps
would get you the finder

or you could get more complicated

geturl_cat
"ra=00:00:00&dec=-65:00:00&x=8&y=8&bright=13&faint=15&waveband=2&form=2&purge=0&
blend=3"

etc

Things to be aware of: the options bright and faint are applied to the
primary waveband, quality and blend have to be satisfied
across all bands that the object appears on; unfortunately parents are not
paired across the wavebands. If not objects are found you get back an
(html based) error message.

As mentioned above we hope to expand the calib option to include
calibrate all objects as galaxies etc.

We're not ready for our "ultimate" galaxy calibraion but I agreed
to set something up for Marianne to allow her to access the existing
galaxy calibrated magnitudes for all objects. If you're happy to use
geturl you can add the calib=4 or 5 to the query string

calib=0 no color correction objects calibrated acoording to type
         in each waveband
calib=1 as 0 but color corrected mags
calib=2 all objects calibrated as if stellar
calib=3 as 2 but color corrected
calib=4 all objects calibrated as if galaxies
calib=5 as 4 but color corrected

I did a few tests and it seems to get sensible results but please
do a few sanity checks.

IMAGES
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geturl_image "ra=07:23:53.799&dec=-46:47:56.83&x=1&y=1&waveband=1" >
temp.fits

waveband=1 UKJ, 2 UKR, 3 UKI

NOTE: SuperCOSMOS images are multi-extension FITS format; to get the image in IRAF you would do specify exntension zero by "[0]":

cl> display out.fits[0] 1


Note that the catalogues attached to the FITS images are as before
in that they are a mix are stellar and galaxian (calib=1) and
have hardwired quality thresholds etc built in so will
not necessarily contain the same number of objects as those
retrieved using any of the object catalogue interfaces.