Abstract

GAIA (Graphical Astronomy and Image Analysis) is an interactive astronomical image display and analysis tool. It includes a comprehensive suite of facilities for displaying and manipulating images. It also has extensive facilities for the astronomical analysis of images, including: astrometric calibration, automatic object detection and aperture, optimal and surface photometry. GAIA can access images in most of the data formats common in astronomy and can also retrieve copies of remote images and catalogues via the Internet.

This cookbook is an introduction to GAIA. It describes the facilities that GAIA provides and gives some simple examples of their use. It refers to GAIA version 2.6 or higher.

Who Should Read this Cookbook?

This cookbook is aimed at astronomers who are new to GAIA, but who think that it might be useful in their work. It is not aimed at experienced users of GAIA, for whom the GAIA manual (SUN/214) or the on-line help within GAIA itself might be more useful.