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TESS obtains time-series photometry at two different cadences with a baseline ranging from 3 weeks out to a year. An overview of the primary science products are shown above. The entire set of CCDs for each TESS sector are downloaded every 30-minutes, these are known as the Full Frame Images (FFIs). Selected sections Certain groups of sky pixels are also downloaded at a 2-minute cadence in order to obtain a faster cadence for a subset of targets. The the pixels at each time stamp pixels around a selected star are stored as arrays in target-pixel files, one image per time stamp. Aperture photometry is performed on each image creating an array of fluxes; these are stored in a light curve file. See the Science Product Handbook for more detailed information on file formats and content.
- Full Frame Images (FFI, ffi.fits): These files contain the long cadence time series of the entire field of view, both an uncalibrated and calibrated version are available.
- Target Pixel Files (TPF, .tp.fits): These files contain a time series of the raw and calibrated pixels downloaded at the 2-minute cadence.
- Light Curve Files (LCF, .lc.fits): These files contain the simple aperture photometry flux time series derived from the calibrated short-cadence pixels. It also contains These files contain several time series including the simple aperture photometry, a conditioned light curve that attempts to remove all signals except for astrophysical ones by co-trending against basis vectors derived from all stars observed in short cadence on the same camera.
Target Catalogs
- where common signals have been removed, position vectors and quality flags.
Target Catalogs
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TESS Tess provides several catalogs of target stars in order to choose which stars will be observed at a rapid the 2-minute cadence.
- TESS Input Catalog (TIC): Catalog of stars used created by the TESS mission Stellar Properties Working Group and is used to select targets to download at short cadence. The TIC is available through the MAST portal and via the API.
- Catalog Target List (CTL): Subset Several lists which are subsets of the TIC containing each science groups priorities to obtain short cadence observations.
- Merged Target List (MTL): These targets are observed at the 2-min cadence.
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