The new aXe version 1.6 neither introduces new techniques (as aXedrizzle in aXe-1.4 or
quantitative contamination in aXe-1.5) nor offers completely new tasks. Apart from the 'usual'
bug fixing and, occasionally, code replacement the aXe development since the release of aXe-1.51
had two main drivers:
- with the HLA activities at the ST-ECF aXe is
deployed to reduced NICMOS G141 grism data.
- the slitless spectroscopy group at the ST-ECF will also support the slitless modes of
the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3).
Both projects require a significant development of aXe including new tasks,
and are still continuing. Instead of finishing these projects and then
releasing a new, different aXe version we have chosen to release aXe-1.6 with
the already existing, 'old' tasks together with the partially new software working
underneath.
With aXe-1.6 the aXe users get a new version without having to change their reduction
scripts, since the tasks and their parameters are almost identical to aXe-1.51.
The aXe-1.6 changes visible to the user are:
- when estimating the local background it is now possible to apply a Gaussian
smoothing in the x-direction. (parameters smooth_length and
smooth_fwhm in the tasks axecore and backest)
- the modelling of the beams in quantitative contamination is done
with a higher resolution. The contamination images look smoother and the
contamination estimates in aXe-1.6 differ from the aXe-1.5 results, although
the differences are usually negligible. Since the beam models are also the basis for
the weights in optimal extraction, the optimally extracted spectra in axe-1.6
differ slightly from aXe-1.5.
- using the low level task petcont it is now possible to do create
simulated slitles images with high resolution spectra and image templates as
input (paramters spec_models and obect_models).
These new features are not yet encapsulated in convenient High Level
Tasks. Interested users are requested to contact Martin Kümmel
(mkuemmel@eso.org) for further
details.
Maintained by Martin Kümmel <mkuemmel@eso.org>
