
POS1 - v3.1
Astrometric Package in MIDAS

This package is a MIDAS implementation of the original POS1 program
developed by Richard West (ESO) in the 80's. 

The input/output have been made compatible with Midas, but the
algorithm has not been changed (as it proved to be extremely accurate,
this would have been masochism). In this release, the user interface
has been considerabely improved and the program has now the capability
of finding its astrometric standard stars on the Internet, without any
help from the operator.

While the original POS1 was doing everything in one programme, the
MIDAS version has been split in 3 steps:
  1* read the measurements and standard stars, and compute the
     transformation parameters (this step is performed by the 
     ASTROM/TRANSFO, possibly called by the nicer interface of
     ASTROM/AUTO)
  2* edit the standard star table to remove/restore some stars (this
     step is performed by ASTROM/EDIT, or with the nicer interface of 
     ASTROM/AUTO)
  3* actually compute the converted coordinates (this step is
     performed by ASTROM/COMPUTE)

Steps 1 and 2 can be iterated until a satisfactory result is obtained.
The whole process can be performed in an iterative way that mimics the
former POS1 calling the POS1.PRG programme (ASTROM/POS1); the user
will be asked for all the parameters.


A demo image is included, together with the corresponding files and
output, in order to test that the program works well on your system.

Some support can be provided by Olivier Hainaut (ohainaut@eso.org), to
whom bug reports and suggestions should also be sent.
