PS1 took approximately 370,000 exposures from 2010 to 2015. These exposures are detrended, astrometrically calibrated, resampled (warped) onto a standard sky coordinate grid, stacked, and differenced. The different types of images are described below. More details about image filenames and data formats are included in the description of the PS1 Image Cutout Service.



The following information is taken from Waters et al. and Magnier et al., which should be cited appropriately.


Schematic of the images and analysis processing stage of the PS1 IPP Pipeline, described in Magnier et al.

Raw images

After an exposure is taken at the telescope, the raw image files of the 60 CCDs (see PS1 GPC1 camera) are corrected for persistence issues and then handed over to the PS1 IPP pipeline for further analysis. The STScI PS1 Archive does not provide these images.

Camera images

The camera images are created by applying PS1 Exposure detrending to the raw images (i.e., masking, bias subtraction, flat fielding), and determining the astrometric and photometric calibration. The STScI PS1 Archive does not provide these images.

Image artifacts and anomalies

For more info see the PS1 Image artifacts and anomalies page.

Warp images (available in DR2)

For more info see the PS1 Warp images page.

Stack images (DR1)

For more info see the PS1 Stack images page.

Difference images (planned to be available in future)

Difference images are created by subtracting a warp from another image, in general the stack, after matching the PSFs and normalization using a spatially varying kernel. All static objects such as galaxies and constant stars are subtracted out, and only the excess flux from the different epochs is left. Even though the differences images are not stored on disk, they can be created, and it is planned to make them accessible through the STScI PS1 interface in a later release.

Mask Image

Weight Image

For more info see the PS1 Weight image page.

 

PS1 3-color image of NGC 894

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