MOPEX User's Guide - IRSA

MOPEX User’s Guide
Mosaic: Interpolates the input images onto a common grid, carries out outlier
detection and masking, co-adds the images together and stitches
them all into a single mosaic.
APEX Multiframe: Carries out point-source extraction on a stack of images. Optionally
builds a mosaic along the way, and in any case, does detections on
the mosaic, extractions on the stack. A PRF function (or an arrayposition
dependent map) for the image stack is typically provided,
and is required for point-source fitting photometry.
APEX Single Frame: Carries out point source extraction on a single image, e.g. a mosaic
image. A PRF function (or an array-position dependent map) for the
single image typically provided, and is required for point-source
fitting photometry.
APEX User List Allows users to give MOPEX a list of sources to extract, rather than
allowing MOPEX to do the extraction on all detected sources in the
fie ld. This is available in two flavors - Multiframe and Single Frame.
APEX QA: Creates residual images for both APEX Multiframe and APEX
Single Frame by subtracting the detected point sources from the
input images. This pipe line is invaluable for checking the results of
PRF-fitting.
PRF Estimate: Allows user to generate their own PRF from their dataset. Warning:
Only for use with well-sampled data that does not display any intrapixel
variability. For this reason, this script should not be used with
IRAC channel 1 and 2 data.
2.4.1 Ancillary Scripts
While the seven major scripts above are the most commonly used, there are a few more that are
available on the command-line. A full list of all of the MOPEX scripts can be found in Appendix
A, but the most commonly used ones are:
flatfield.pl: Creates a “flat-fie ld” image by taking the median of the image stack.
Optionally divides the stack by the flat-field. Allows bright objects to be
detected and masked beforehand. See the file
/readme/README_flatfield for documentation.
Overview of MOPEX 12
Introducing the Major P ipelines in MOPEX