PIPS analyzes the lightcurves of astronomical objects whose brightness changes periodically. Originally developed to determine the periods of RR Lyrae variable stars, the code offers many features designed for variable star analysis and can obtain period values for almost any type of lightcurve with both speed and accuracy. PIPS determines periods through several different methods, analyzes the morphology of lightcurves via Fourier analysis, estimates the statistical significance of the detected signal, and determines stellar properties based on pre-existing stellar models.

SImMER (Stellar Image Maturation via Efficient Reduction) reduces astronomical imaging data. It performs standard dark-subtraction and flat-fielding operations on data from, for example, the ShARCS camera on the Shane 3-m telescope at Lick Observatory and the PHARO camera on the Hale 5.1-m telescope at Palomar Observatory; its object-oriented design allows the software to be extended to other instruments. SImMER can also perform sky-subtraction, image registration, FWHM measurement, and contrast curve calculation, and can generate tables and plots. For widely separated stars which are of somewhat equal brightness, a “wide binary” mode allows the user to selects which star is the primary around which each image should be centered.