DAOPHOT

DAOPHOT is specialized software used by astronomers to analyze crowded star fields in images. It helps identify individual stars by modeling and subtracting the background light and overlapping stellar images, allowing for accurate measurement of each star’s brightness. Think of it as a precise tool that separates and measures stars in dense regions, enabling astronomers to study stars’ properties and distributions even when they are closely packed together. This capability is essential for research in areas like star clusters and galaxy centers.