Obtaining and reducing MIRAC data


Observing proposal forms, writing proposals

Contact the MIRAC team before preparing proposals. Below are links to relevant telescope proposal forms:

The MIRAC Sensitivity Estimator will assist in calculating the required total time to obtain a certain signal/noise for objects of a given flux.

Preparing for observing:

The following are c programs that have been compiled to run on Sun workstations:

Observing programs:

These programs are the latest versions of software to be run on the MIRAC observing PC at the telescope.

Observing Log pages

These are the blank "manual" or handwritten log pages extracted from the observer's manual, stored as postscript files. Available are the following:

MIRAC Setup

A series of photos are available showing MIRAC setup on the IRTF and UKIRT.

Taking and Reducing MIRAC data:


Post-observing data processing programs:

These are c programs and other scripts for unix machines to process the MIRAC data.


Sample Gain and Mask images

1994 Data

Here are some sample files to compare to when doing data reduction. The following were taken previous to 1995 when there was still significant vignetting. Note that these are in the non-rotated or transposed orientation, which is necessary for use in the mrc2fts program. See the Mid-IR Flat fielding document for instructions on how to make these images.

1995 Data

The next set are not vignetted:

1999 Data

The following gains were taken during the May-June 1999 IRTF run. September 1999 IRTF Run (vignetting present): Gains for 1999/09/23

The following mask was developed for the Sept. 1999 IRTF run. It masks the hot and cold vignetted pixels and 18 high dark current pixels in the remainder of the array. It has the orientation of the sky (North up, East left) for which the raw data is flipped vertically and transposed.



Links to other sites:

CfA Home Page
MIRAC Home Page


Questions about this page to: jhora@cfa.harvard.edu

Last modified: 1999 October 21