Issue |
A&A
Volume 607, November 2017
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | A64 | |
Number of page(s) | 14 | |
Section | Numerical methods and codes | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201730925 | |
Published online | 15 November 2017 |
Background derivation and image flattening: getimages
Laboratoire AIM Paris-Saclay, CEA/DSM-CNRS-Université Paris Diderot, IRFU, Service d’Astrophysique, Centre d’Études de Saclay, Orme des Merisiers, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France
e-mail: alexander.menshchikov@cea.fr
Received: 3 April 2017
Accepted: 26 July 2017
Modern high-resolution images obtained with space observatories display extremely strong intensity variations across images on all spatial scales. Source extraction in such images with methods based on global thresholding may bring unacceptably large numbers of spurious sources in bright areas while failing to detect sources in low-background or low-noise areas. It would be highly beneficial to subtract background and equalize the levels of small-scale fluctuations in the images before extracting sources or filaments. This paper describes getimages, a new method of background derivation and image flattening. It is based on median filtering with sliding windows that correspond to a range of spatial scales from the observational beam size up to a maximum structure width Xλ. The latter is a single free parameter of getimages that can be evaluated manually from the observed image ℐλ. The median filtering algorithm provides a background image for structures of all widths below Xλ. The same median filtering procedure applied to an image of standard deviations 𝓓λ derived from a background-subtracted image results in a flattening image . Finally, a flattened detection image is computed, whose standard deviations are uniform outside sources and filaments. Detecting sources in such greatly simplified images results in much cleaner extractions that are more complete and reliable. As a bonus, getimages reduces various observational and map-making artifacts and equalizes noise levels between independent tiles of mosaicked images.
Key words: stars: formation / infrared: ISM / submillimeter: ISM / methods: data analysis / techniques: image processing / techniques: photometric
© ESO, 2017
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