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Working with WFCAM flat filesPipeline proceesed WFACAM files can be browsed and downloaded via the Archive Listing form. Information on the files is given below.Also see the cookbook pages at JACH, the technical page at CASU and this CASU page about catalogues. The WSA archives the FITS images and catalogues produced by the CASU pipeline. Metadata from the images and objects from the catalogues are processed and ingested into database tables (also see data overview) Typically the FITS images have a .fit file extension while the catalogues end _cat.fits. The database entity MULTIFRAME references a FITS image and if applicable a corresponding FITS catlogue. Note only stacked images have catalogues (eg calibration frames and intermediate science frames do not have catalogues.) Apart from secondary data products (e.g. mosaic images) WFCAM FITS files have a primary header and 4 FITS extensions with each extension representing one of the detectors. The on-sky layout of the detectors shown below was taken from a CASU document. The green marker is the "bottom-left" corner on a default display ie. the pixel 1,1. Note that all detector images output from the DAS are inverted with respect to astronomical sky and that each detector image is rotated through 90 degrees with respect to the next detector in the sequence.
The FITS image files are RICE compressed and some applications will require the file to be uncompressed before use, see notes on compression. Starlinks's GAIA is able to open the FITS images directly for display. Converting catalogue fluxes to magnitudes The FITS catalogues contain un-calibrated fluxes. When ingested in to the database tables (DETECTION and SOURCE tables) objects will have their fluxes converted to calibrated magnitudes. The fluxes contained in the FITS catalogues can be converted to calibrated magnitudes using attributes in the FITS header of the relevant extension. Whereby, the instrumental magnitude, instMag, is instMag = -2.5 * log10(flux) and the extinction correction, extCorr, is extCorr = -extinct * (airmassStart + airmassEnd)/2) -1) and the exposure correction, texpCorr, is texpCorr = 2.5 * log10(exptime) then the calibrated magnitude, calMag, is calMag = instMag + magZpt + extCorr + texpCorr - aperCor In addition to the corrections shown here, further corrections can be made to account for distortion and illumination. The values for extinct, airmassStart, airmassEnd, exptime and magZpt can be found in the FITS header of the relevant extension under keywords: EXTINCT, AMSTART, AMEND, EXP_TIME and MAGZPT. The values for flux are read for each object (row) in the catalogue from the required flux attribute eg Aper_flux_3 or Kron_flux. For aperture corrected magnitudes use the corresponding APERCOR value in the FITS extension header eg APCOR3. By way of an example, the 1st extension of a FITS catlogues has the following header information AMSTART = 1.083 / Airmass at start of observation AMEND = 1.084 / Airmass at end of observation EXP_TIME= 20.000000 / [s] Integration time per exposure APCOR1 = 1.242335 / Stellar aperture correction - 1/2x core flux APCOR2 = 0.8231881 / Stellar aperture correction - core/sqrt(2) flux APCOR3 = 0.4040413 / Stellar aperture correction - core flux APCOR4 = 0.1864481 / Stellar aperture correction - sqrt(2)x core flu APCOR5 = 0.07809448 / Stellar aperture correction - 2x core flux APCOR6 = 0.02818298 / Stellar aperture correction - 2sqrt(2)x core fl APCOR7 = 0. / Stellar aperture correction - 4x core flux MAGZPT = 22.771 / Photometric ZP (mags) for default extinction EXTINCT = 0.05 / Extinction coefficient (mags) So say for a given object the aper_flux_3 is 0.60321E+03 and the kron_flux is 0.10143E+04. Then extCorr = -0.00418, texpCorr=3.25257 and aperMag3 =-2.5*log10(0.60321E+03)+22.771-0.00418+3.25257-APERCOR3 = 18.664 and kronMag =-2.5*log10(0.10143+04)+22.771-0.00418+3.25257 = 18.504
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