#----------------------------------------------------------------------------- # IRACproc: IRAC Post-BCD Processing v4.3 GENERAL_INFO #----------------------------------------------------------------------------- (c) 2005 Mike Schuster, Massimo Marengo (mmarengo@cfa.harvard.edu) (c) 2005 SAO - Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory Mike Schuster (software integration, PDL+Perl+IRAF software) Massimo Marengo (PDL+Perl software, HDR PSFs) email: mmarengo@cfa.harvard.edu Brian Patten (Perl+IRAF software) 31 MAY 2007 IRACproc is a software suite that that processes Spitzer/IRAC data to make them ready for scientific analysis. The software runs within PDL, a numeric extension for Perl available from pdl.perl.org, and as stand alone perl scripts. Processing starts with the Spitzer Science Center's (SSC) Basic Calibrated Data (BCD) as provided within the AOR(s): the science BCD images, the BCD data quality (Dmask) images, and the BCD statistical uncertainty images. The SSC's mosaicing software MOPEX is used to co-add the BCD images based on their World Coordinate System (WCS) information. As an augmentation to MOPEX, IRACproc has two main functions: to facilitate the co-addition and other processing of IRAC data, and to provide a more effective outlier rejection technique. The software contains routines for measuring and merging photometry from the four IRAC bandpasses, and others. In addition, the software has routines for fitting and subtracting a set of High Dynamic Range (HDR) Point Spread Functions (PSF). If you use this software, please include the following acknowledgment in your work: "This work is based in part on the IRAC post-BCD processing software "IRACproc" developed by Mike Schuster, Massimo Marengo and Brian Patten at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory." In addition, please site the following reference: M. T. Schuster, M. Marengo and B. M. Patten, "IRACproc: A software suite for processing and analyzing Spitzer/IRAC data," in Observatory Operations: Strategies, Processes, and Systems. Edited by David R. Silva and Rodger E. Doxsey. Proceedings of the SPIE, Volume 6270, p. 627020, 2006. This software is distributed as is, without any guarantee or warranty. We thank David Makovoz for adding the absolute minimum mosaic as an option for the MOPEX mosaic module specifically for IRACproc. #----------------------------------------------------------------------------- # Data Processing Directory Structure #----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The directory structure used by IRACproc is designed to be modular. The directory in which your AOR(s) will be processed can have any name (from now on referred to as proc_dir/). Each field, of one or more related AORs, is meant to be processed in the top level directory created when running the fixup script: proc_dir/ fixup also creates in each proc_dir/: Lists/ analysis/ reduce/ Filename lists and MOPEX module namelists are located in Lists/. Non-MOPEX reduction occurs in reduce/. PSF subtraction, Photometry, and further analysis will be done in analysis/. During processing some, or all, of the following directories may be added to proc_dir/: median_I1/ median_I2/ median_I3/ median_I4/ minabs_I1/ minabs_I2/ minabs_I3/ minabs_I4 mosaic_I1/ mosaic_I2/ mosaic_I3/ mosaic_I4/ overlap_I1/ overlap_I2/ overlap_I3/ overlap_I4/ These directories are where MOPEX places its output. MOPEX overlap correction is performed in overlap_I/. The median images are made in median_I/. If the optional initial outlier rejection is performed, then the absolute minimum mosaics are placed in minabs_I/. The mosaicker is run in mosaic_I/. See MOPEX documentation for directory structures and output. #----------------------------------------------------------------------------- # Configuration Files #----------------------------------------------------------------------------- IRACproc is designed so that users should not need to modify the default settings in the parameter and namelist template files supplied with the software. All master configuration files are located in IRACproc/config/ and copies of these files are placed in proc_dir/Lists/ when the first processing step is run. They can then be edited to adapt the software to the specific needs of individual data sets. This is done to prevent the modification of the master configuration files supplied with IRACproc. #----------------------------------------------------------------------------- # MOPEX Suggestions [modifying default namelist template settings (_tmpl.nl)] #----------------------------------------------------------------------------- We recommend that users of IRACproc do not use Drizzle or Bicubic for interpolation until particular issues with their implementation in MOPEX have been solved (dark spots with negative values appear in the final mosaic, and too much ordered structure in coverage maps). We recommend that users of IRACproc do not use FINERES with linear interpolation, as it negatively affects resolution and coverage uniformity. Setting FINERES=1 is not sufficient, it must be commented out. Do not use compute_uncertainties_internally. IRACproc makes use of the SSC BCD uncertainty frames and performs other, additional, operations with them and their use in MOPEX. Though, we recommend that IRACproc users do not, they may use both single frame outlier detection (run_detect_radhit), as well as dual outlier detection (run_detect_outlier, run_mosaic_proj, run_mosaic_dual_outlier and run_level), in addition to the specialized outlier rejection performed by IRACproc. IRACproc uses specialized "metric maps" in place of the SSC BCD uncertainty images, and so sigma_weighted_coadd and create_std_mosaic will produce an output different from that stated by the creators of MOPEX.