AWAIC: A WISE Astronomical Image Co-adder
Abstract
We describe a new image co-addition tool, AWAIC, to support the creation of a digital Image Atlas from the multiple frame exposures acquired with the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). AWAIC includes preparatory steps such as frame background matching and outlier detection using robust frame-stack statistics. Frame co-addition is based on using the detector's Point Response Function (PRF) as an interpolation kernel. This kernel reduces the impact of prior-masked pixels; enables the creation of an optimal matched filtered product for point source detection; and most important, it allows for resolution enhancement (HiRes) to yield a model of the sky that is consistent with the observations to within measurement error. The HiRes functionality allows for non-isoplanatic PRFs, prior noise-variance weighting, uncertainty estimation, and includes a ringing-suppression algorithm. AWAIC also supports the popular overlap-area weighted interpolation method, and is generic enough for use on any astronomical image data that supports the FITS and WCS standards.
Cite
@article{arxiv.0812.4310,
title = {AWAIC: A WISE Astronomical Image Co-adder},
author = {Frank J. Masci and John W. Fowler},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0812.4310},
year = {2008}
}
Comments
16 pages, 6 figures. Invited paper to appear in Proceedings of ADASS XVIII Conference