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<H1><A NAME="SECTION00810000000000000000">
Introduction</A>
</H1>
This chapter describes the set of commands implemented in MIDAS to
do crowded field photometry on digital astronomical images. The
package has been developed by
<BR>
R. Buonanno, G. Buscema, C. Corsi,
I. Ferraro, and G. Iannicola, all at the Osservatorio Astronomico di
Roma. The package runs as a part of the data reduction system at Rome
Observatory and is well known from its name: ROMAFOT.
Since in Italian the suffix ``fot'' refers also to the word ``photometry'',
the name ROMAFOT was chosen as an easy homophony with DAOPHOT.
<P>
The idea of ROMAFOT was born (and realised) in the second half of the
seventies. The need for such a package has arisen from the technical
evolution (for instance the arrival of the PDS etc.) and from
the huge amounts of data becoming manageable. A rich bibliography
of authors who worked on the same objective (e.g. Newell and O'Neil,
1974 [<A
HREF="node119.html#nao:eao">1</A>], Van Altena and Auer, 1975 [<A
HREF="node119.html#vaa:ipt">2</A>], Butcher, 1977
[<A
HREF="node119.html#but:apj">3</A>], Herzog and Illingworth, 1977 [<A
HREF="node119.html#hai:sup">4</A>],
Chiu, 1977 [<A
HREF="node119.html#chi:ajc">5</A>], Auer and Van Altena, 1978 [<A
HREF="node119.html#ava:aja">6</A>]
Buonanno et al., 1979 [<A
HREF="node119.html#bea:iwi">7</A>], Buonanno et al., 1983 [<A
HREF="node119.html#asx:uia">8</A>]
Stetson, 1979 [<A
HREF="node119.html#ste:ajs">9</A>], Stetson, 1979 [<A
HREF="node119.html#ste:sja">10</A>]) shows that
efficient handling of digital
astronomical images was widely felt for the astronomical community.
In addition, since the numerical problem requires very classic solutions,
neither the <I>idea</I> nor the <I>solution</I> asks for particular emphasis.
<BR>
Where ROMAFOT has perhaps merit is in having taken dozens of decisions
such as:
<UL>
<LI>should the sky background be calculated before or together with
the star?
<LI>which size of the subwindow optimises the ratio photometric
quality/computing time?
<LI>when should two objects be considered blended and be fitted
together?
<LI>which is the optimum degree of interaction?
</UL> All these choices require experiments, time, and naturally effort.
<P>
In this description Section <A HREF="node84.html#theory">5.2</A> gives some theoretical
background about how ROMAFOT operates. Section <A HREF="node85.html#overview-of-romafot">5.3</A>
presents an overview of the commands available in the ROMAFOT context.
Section <A HREF="node86.html#how-to-use-romafot">5.4</A> describes the commands in detail. The
section is split into a part for the automatic reduction and a part for
the more interactive reduction. Finally, Section <A HREF="node118.html#ch05-com-syn">5.5</A>
gives a summary of all ROMAFOT commands.
<P>
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<ADDRESS>
<I>Petra Nass</I>
<BR><I>1999-06-15</I>
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