Absolute Calibration and Characterization of the Multiband Imaging Photometer for Spitzer. II. 70 μm Imaging

By K. Gordon, C. Engelbracht, D. Fadda, J. Stansberry, S. Wachter, D. Frayer, G. Rieke, A. Noriega-Crespo, W. Latter, E. Young and 14 more. 2007

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The absolute calibration and characterization of the Multiband Imaging Photometer for Spitzer (MIPS) 70 μm coarse‐ and fine‐scale imaging modes are presented based on over 2.5 yr of observations. Accurate photometry (especially for faint sources) requires two simple processing steps beyond the standard data reduction to remove long‐term detector transients. Point‐spread function (PSF) fitting photometry is found to give more accurate flux densities than aperture photometry. Based on the PSF fitting photometry, the calibration factor shows no strong trend with flux density, background, spectral type, exposure time, or time since anneals. The coarse‐scale calibration sample includes observations of stars with flux densities from 22 mJy to 17 Jy, on backgrounds from 4 to 26 MJy sr−1, and with spectral types from B to M. The coarse‐scale calibration is 702 ± 35 MJy sr−1 MIPS70−1 (5% uncertainty) and is based on measurements of 66 stars. The instrumental units of the MIPS 70 μm coarse‐ and fine‐scale imaging modes are called MIPS70 and MIPS70F, respectively. The photometric repeatability is calculated to be 4.5% from two stars measured during every MIPS campaign and includes variations on all timescales probed. The preliminary fine‐scale calibration factor is 2894 ± 294 MJy sr−1 MIPS70F−1 (10% uncertainty) based on 10 stars. The uncertainties in the coarse‐ and fine‐scale calibration factors are dominated by the 4.5% photometric repeatability and the small sample size, respectively. The 5 σ, 500 s sensitivity of the coarse‐scale observations is 6–8 mJy. This work shows that the MIPS 70 μm array produces accurate, well‐calibrated photometry and validates the MIPS 70 μm operating strategy, especially the use of frequent stimulator flashes to track the changing responsivities of the Ge:Ga detectors.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0a3d1235ad04a95e0ec8977f0b1abf46728834fc

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Citations in the corpus

Common-Resolution Convolution Kernels for Space- and Ground-Based Telescopes (2011, methodology): “Following Engelbracht et al. (2007); Gordon et al. (2007); Stansberry et al. (2007), we generate theoretical PSFs for the MIPS cameras, assuming a blackbody source at T = 25K.”
A COOL DUST FACTORY IN THE CRAB NEBULA: A HERSCHEL STUDY OF THE FILAMENTS (2012, methodology): “However, we find this discrepancy disappears if we use the most recent calibration factors from Gordon et al. (2007).”
STAR FORMATION IN THE CENTRAL 400 PC OF THE MILKY WAY: EVIDENCE FOR A POPULATION OF MASSIVE YOUNG STELLAR OBJECTS (2009, methodology): “These data were reduced using the MIPS Instrument Team’s Data Analysis Tool v. 3.06 (Gordon et al. 2007).”
The Behavior of the Aromatic Features in M101 H II Regions: Evidence for Dust Processing (2008, methodology): “The MIPS absolute uncertainties are 4% (Engelbracht et al. 2007), 5% (Gordon et al. 2007), and 12% (Stansberry et al. 2007).”
Debris Disks around Sun-like Stars (2007, methodology): “At 70 m we used images processed beyond the standard DAT software to correct for timedependent transients, corrections that can significantly improve the sensitivity of the measurements (Gordon et al. 2007).”
Investigations of dust heating in M81, M83 and NGC 2403 with the Herschel Space Observatory (2011, methodology): “The residual backgrounds in the data were measured in regions outside the optical discs of the galaxies and subtracted, and then flux calibration factors (given as 702 MJy sr−1 [MIPS instrumental unit]−1 by Gordon et al. (2007)) were applied to the data.”
NEW DEBRIS DISKS AROUND YOUNG, LOW-MASS STARS DISCOVERED WITH THE SPITZER SPACE TELESCOPE (2009, unknown): “We also applied additional reduction techniques to remove instrumental artifacts and flux calibration as described by Engelbracht et al. (2007); Gordon et al. (2007) at 24 and 70 um, respectively.”
THE SPITZER LOCAL VOLUME LEGACY: SURVEY DESCRIPTION AND INFRARED PHOTOMETRY (2009, background): “MIPS calibration uncertainties are 4%, 5%, and 12% respectively at 24, 70, and 160 µm (Engelbracht et al. 2007, Gordon et al. 2007, and Stansberry et al. 2007).”
SURVEYING THE AGENTS OF GALAXY EVOLUTION IN THE TIDALLY STRIPPED, LOW METALLICITY SMALL MAGELLANIC CLOUD (SAGE-SMC). I. OVERVIEW (2011, methodology): “Point Source Catalogs Point source catalogs were created for all three MIPS bands using the PSF-fitting program StarFinder (Diolaiti et al. 2000) using model PSFs validated as part of the MIPS calibration effort (Engelbracht et al. 2007; Gordon et al. 2007; Stansberry et al. 2007).”
Modeling the evolution of infrared galaxies: a parametric backward evolution model (2010, methodology): “We took into account the uncertainties in the calibration estimated by the instrumental team, in our fit (Stansberry et al. 2007; Gordon et al. 2007; Engelbracht et al. 2007; Swinyard et al. 2010; Scott et al. 2010).”
Metallicity Effects on Dust Properties in Starbursting Galaxies (2008, methodology): “…each galaxy (due both to photon noise and confusion) was then added in quadrature to the calibration uncertainty for each band: 2% (NIR; Cohen et al. 2003), 3% (IRAC; Reach et al. 2005), 2% (24 µm; Engelbracht et al. 2007), 5% (70 µm; Gordon et al. 2007), and 12% (160 µm; Stansberry et al. 2007).”
Absolute Calibration and Characterization of the Multiband Imaging Photometer for Spitzer. I. The Stellar Calibrator Sample and the 24 μm Calibration (2007, background): “Furthermore, these stars are too faint to be useful as calibrators for the MIPS 70 µm band (discussed by Gordon et al. 2007).”
RADIAL DISTRIBUTION OF STARS, GAS, AND DUST IN SINGS GALAXIES. II. DERIVED DUST PROPERTIES (2009, background): “The estimated zero-point errors are 4%, 5% and 12% at 24, 70 and 160µm, respectively (Engelbracht et al. 2007; Gordon et al. 2007; Stansberry et al. 2007).”
Physical Properties of Kuiper Belt and Centaur Objects: Constraints from the Spitzer Space Telescope (2007, background): “Uncertainties on the absolute calibration of MIPS are 4% and 5% at 24 and 70µm, respectively (Engelbracht et al., 2007; Gordon et al., 2007).”
Non-standard grain properties, dark gas reservoir, and extended submillimeter excess, probed by Herschel in the Large Magellanic Cloud (2011, methodology): “MIPS70µm: Gordon et al. (2007) quote a 1σ calibration error of σcal(MIPS70µm) = 5 % for the coarse scale mapping used for the SAGE observations.”
Dust spectral energy distributions of nearby galaxies: an insight from the Herschel Reference Survey (2014, background): “The error calculation takes into account the calibration error, 4 and 10% at 24 and 70 µm (Engelbracht et al. 2007; Gordon et al. 2007), respectively, the uncertainty based on the error map, and the background noise.”
THE HERSCHEL REFERENCE SURVEY: DUST IN EARLY-TYPE GALAXIES AND ACROSS THE HUBBLE SEQUENCE (2011, background): “The calibration uncertainties were assumed to be 5% at 70µm and 12% at 160µm (Gordon et al. 2007; Stansberry et al. 2007).”