Fitting galaxy spectra with STECKMAP: a user guide
  STECKMAP stands for STEllar Content and Kinematics via Maximum A Posteriori
likelihood. It is a tool for interpreting galaxy spectra in terms of their
stellar populations, through the derivation of their star formation history,
age-metallicity relation, kinematics and extinction. To do so, the observed
spectrum is projected onto a temporal sequence of models of single stellar
populations, so as to determine a linear combination of these models, that fit
the observed spectrum best. The weights of the various components of this
linear combination indicate the stellar content of the population. This
procedure is regularized using various penalizing functions. The principles of
the method are detailed in Ocvirk et al. 2006a,b. The STECKMAP software package
is public and freely available at http://astro.u-strasbg.fr/~ocvirk/. A number
of authors have already adopted it and use it in their daily research. This
user guide aims at accompanying the user through the setup and first runs of
STECKMAP. The last chapter will help the user to understand and improve his
results and experience with the code.
