A Method of Correcting Near‐Infrared Spectra for Telluric Absorption

By W. Vacca, M. Cushing, J. Rayner. 2002

893 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We present a method for correcting near‐infrared medium‐resolution spectra for telluric absorption. The method makes use of a spectrum of an A0 V star, observed near in time and close in air mass to the target object, and a high‐resolution model of Vega, to construct a telluric correction spectrum that is free of stellar absorption features. The technique was designed specifically to perform telluric corrections on spectra obtained with SpeX, a 0.8–5.5 μm medium‐resolution cross‐dispersed spectrograph at the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility, and uses the fact that for medium resolutions there exist spectral regions uncontaminated by atmospheric absorption lines. However, it is also applicable (in a somewhat modified form) to spectra obtained with other near‐infrared spectrographs. An IDL‐based code that carries out the procedures is available for downloading via the World Wide Web.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Atmospheric Science, Spectroscopy

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. Michael C. Liu
2. K. Luhman
3. A. Burgasser
4. T. Dupuy
5. J. D. Kirkpatrick
6. Kelle Cruz
7. B. Bowler
8. M. Marley

In Atmospheric Science

1. A. Burgasser
2. Michael C. Liu
3. J. D. Kirkpatrick
4. T. Dupuy
5. A. Mann
6. B. Metzger
7. K. Allers
8. M. Cushing

In Spectroscopy

1. K. Luhman
2. A. Burgasser
3. Michael C. Liu
4. J. D. Kirkpatrick
5. T. Dupuy
6. Kelle Cruz
7. M. Cushing
8. S. Leggett

Citations in the corpus

• STELLAR AND PLANETARY PROPERTIES OF K2 CAMPAIGN 1 CANDIDATES AND VALIDATION OF 17 PLANETS, INCLUDING A PLANET RECEIVING EARTH-LIKE INSOLATION (2015, methodology): “An A0V-type star was observed immediately after the target, which was used to create a telluric correction using the xtellcor package (Vacca et al. 2003).”
• DISCOVERIES FROM A NEAR-INFRARED PROPER MOTION SURVEY USING MULTI-EPOCH TWO MICRON ALL-SKY SURVEY DATA (2010, methodology): “Standard reductions were employed using the Spextool package, version 3.2 (Cushing et al. 2004; Vacca et al. 2003).”
• THE HAWAII INFRARED PARALLAX PROGRAM. II. YOUNG ULTRACOOL FIELD DWARFS (2016, methodology): “All spectra were reduced using version 4.0 of the SpeXtool software package (Vacca et al. 2003; Cushing et al. 2004).”
• STELLAR VELOCITY DISPERSION MEASUREMENTS IN HIGH-LUMINOSITY QUASAR HOSTS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR THE AGN BLACK HOLE MASS SCALE (2013, methodology): “Second, to remove stellar absorption lines in our telluric spectra, we used methods described by Vacca et al. (2003) and applied in the IDL-based code xtellcor.”
• The Field Substellar Mass Function Based on the Full-sky 20 pc Census of 525 L, T, and Y Dwarfs (2020, methodology): “A0 stars were used for the telluric correction and flux calibration steps following the technique described in Vacca et al. (2003).”
• NEAR-INFRARED METALLICITIES, RADIAL VELOCITIES, AND SPECTRAL TYPES FOR 447 NEARBY M DWARFS (2013, methodology): “We usedxtellcor to perform the telluric corrections (Vacca et al. 2003).”
• A Unified Near-Infrared Spectral Classification Scheme for T Dwarfs (2005, methodology): “All data have been homogeneously acquired and reduced using the Spextool package (Vacca et al. 2003; Cushing, Vacca & Rayner 2004).”
• Subtle Signatures of Multiplicity in Late-type Dwarf Spectra: The Unresolved M8.5 + T5 Binary 2MASS J03202839–0446358 (2008, methodology): “Data were reduced with the IDL SpeXtool package, version 3.4 (Cushing, Vacca, & Rayner 2004; Vacca et al. 2003), using standard settings.”
• The 2MASS Wide-Field T Dwarf Search. III. Seven New T Dwarfs and Other Cool Dwarf Discoveries (2004, methodology): “Telluric and instrumental response corrections for the science data were determined using the method outlined in Vacca et al. (2003).”
• A NEAR-INFRARED SPECTROSCOPIC STUDY OF YOUNG FIELD ULTRACOOL DWARFS (2013, methodology): “We observed A0 stars proximate in time and sky position to our science targets and used these data to correct for telluric absorption following the method described in Vacca et al. (2003).”
• COMPARING SINGLE-EPOCH VIRIAL BLACK HOLE MASS ESTIMATORS FOR LUMINOUS QUASARS (2012, methodology): “We used th A0V-star observations for relative flux calibration and telluric correction following the technique of Vacca et al. (2003) using thextellcor routine contained in the Spextool package (Cushing et al. 2004).”
• Molecular hydrogen and (Fe II) in Active Galactic Nuclei (2004, methodology): “The spectral extraction and wavelength calibration procedures were performed using SPEXTOOL, the in-house software developed and provided by the SpeX team for the IRTF community (Cushing et al. 2003; Vacca et al. 2003)1.”
• A NEARBY M STAR WITH THREE TRANSITING SUPER-EARTHS DISCOVERED BY K2 (2015, methodology): “A telluric correction spectrum was constructed from the spectrum of the A0V using the xtellcor package (Vacca et al. 2003) and applied to the spectrum of K2-3.”
• FROM SHOCK BREAKOUT TO PEAK AND BEYOND: EXTENSIVE PANCHROMATIC OBSERVATIONS OF THE TYPE Ib SUPERNOVA 2008D ASSOCIATED WITH SWIFT X-RAY TRANSIENT 080109 (2008, methodology): “Corrections for telluric absorption were performed using the extracted spectrum of an A0V star and a specially designed IDL package developed by Vacca et al. (2003).”
• Discovery of Two Nearby Peculiar L Dwarfs from the 2MASS Proper-Motion Survey: Young or Metal-Rich? (2008, methodology): “Standard reductions were employed using the Spextool package version 3.2 (Cushing et al. 2004; Vacca et al. 2003).”
• Discovery of Two T Dwarf Companions with the Spitzer Space Telescope (2006, methodology): “The spectra were reduced with the Spextool package (Cushing et al. 2004) and corrected for telluric absorption (Vacca et al. 2003).”
• UNVEILING THE STRUCTURE OF PRE-TRANSITIONAL DISKS (2010, methodology): “We extracted the data with Spextool (Cushing et al. 2004) and corrected for telluric absorption using the xtellcor routine (Vacca et al. 2003).”
• Lyα EMISSION FROM A LUMINOUS z = 8.68 GALAXY: IMPLICATIONS FOR GALAXIES AS TRACERS OF COSMIC REIONIZATION (2015, methodology): “To calibrate the spectra we scaled a Vega model10 to each standard star to determine a wavelength-dependent relative flux calibration and telluric correction using the procedure described in Vacca et al. (2003).”