Simulations
Use the simulations menu to run a very lengthy series of simulations. Because the accuracies in this light curve fitting process are highly dependent upon the number of observations, the timing of observations, and the photometric errors, running simulations is the only way to get even the faintest idea of just how accurate your periods are. It will first prompt you for an output file, a period to begin the simulations at, a period to end at, an increment value, the photometric error to use, and the number of times to repeat the process (to build up statistics). It also asks you to select the templates you want to simulate. By default, it selects all the templates, but that's probably not necessary. At the very least you should pick an RRab template and an RRc template to make sure there isn't confusion between the two types, but other than that it doesn't help too much to have additional templates. Once you are satisfied with your selections, hit accept and a new window will popup with a Go! button on the bottom. Hit Go! to start the simulations. Chances are, they'll take a while.
For each simulated variable a line is written to the output file specifying the input variable parameters, and the fitted parameters. The layout of the output file is:
<period> <template> <epoch> <photometry blocks> <fitted period> <fitted template> <fitted epoch> <fitted photometry blocks>
There will be one photometry block for each filter. Each block consists of two columns. The first column is mean magnitude, the second column is mean amplitude. As the simulations progress, the percentage will occasional update itself along the bottom. At the same time, points will be plotted out representing the percentage of stars recovered at a given period. A variable is counted as "recovered" if its fitted period falls within the same bin as the actual period. There are a couple of settings that can adjust the behavior of the simulations. These are detailed in the settings area