Analysis of isoplanatic high resolution stellar fields by the StarFinder code

Abstract

We describe a new code for the deep analysis of stellar fields, designed for Adaptive Optics (AO) Nyquist-sampled images with high and low Strehl ratio. The Point Spread Function (PSF) is extracted directly from the image frame, to take into account the actual structure of the instrumental response and the atmospheric effects. The code is written in IDL language and organized in the form of a self-contained widget-based application, provided with a series of tools for data visualization and analysis. A description of the method and some applications to AO data are presented.