Getting Help

The ESP help system is available from the UNIX shell like any other ESP command. To get help type:

% esphelp

If this does not generate a screen similar to:

    
 ESP
 
     ESP (standing for Extended Surface Photometry) is a package of
     routines that deal with various aspects of obtaining galaxy profiles.
     They may be subdivided thus:
 
 
     ELLPRO, ELLFOU, GAUFIT, SECTOR -  Profile generation.
 
     HISTPEAK, LOBACK and HSUB      -  Background determination.
 
     FASTMED, MASK, SKEW and TOPPED -  Image preparation.
 
     GRAPHS                         -  Presentation of results.
 
     CORR, SELFC, SELFCW and MIXUP  -  Object detection/enhancement.
 
   Additional information available:
 
   CORR       ELLFOU     ELLPRO     FASTMED    GAUFIT     GRAPHS     HISTPEAK   
   HSUB       LOBACK     MASK       MIXUP      SECTOR     SELFC      SELFCW     
   SKEW       TOPPED
 
 Topic?

then contact your system manager.

The help system is functionally similar to that found on DEC VAX machines. So replying to the query `Topic?' with, for example, `loback' generates another level of help:

 LOBACK
 
   Establishes the local mode values for parts of an image.
 
   Usage:
 
      LOBACK IN INFILE SFACT THIRD OUT WIDE
 
   Description:
 
      Establishes the local mode values for parts of an image
      immediately surrounding a set of image co-ordinates supplied by
      the user.
 
      The user may also supply some indication of the number of pixels
      that must be used to create the pixel value histogram. This
      value may be supplied as the width of the square area around the
      co-ordinates that will be used, or alternatively the number of
      contiguous data points believed to be present in the object at
      the image location specified.
 
      The latter method is intended specifically for use with RGASP's
      IMAGES or IRAF's FOCAS output files.
 
      All co-ordinates are read from a two or three columns
      ASCII text file. If two columns are present then these are
      taken as representing the image co-ordinates required for the
      regions of the image to be considered.  Co-ordinates are in
      the Current coordinate system of the NDF. If three columns are
      present the third column respresents the width of the area
      to be sampled or the number of contiguous pixels detected there
      by FOCAS or IMAGES.
 
      The selection of the number of pixels to used in the histogram is
      defined by the user subject to a lower limit of 1024 pixels
      (32x32).
 
   Additional information available:
 
   Parameters            Examples   Notes      Authors    History
 
 LOBACK Subtopic?