NICMOS

The Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) provides imaging capabilities in broad, medium, and narrow band filters, broad-band imaging polarimetry, coronographic imaging, and slitless grism spectroscopy, in the wavelength range 0.8-2.5 microns. NICMOS has three adjacent but not contiguous cameras, designed to operate independently, each with a dedicated array at a different magnification scale. (See the Instrument Handbook for more details).


		Late Breaking News
		NICMOS / NCS Status January 23, 2009 After the previous restart attempt and subsequent safing of the NICMOS Cooling System (NCS) in December 2008, an Anomaly Review Board was convened More... NICMOS / NCS Safing Anomaly and Status Dec 23, 2008 On Friday 19 December 2008, the NICMOS Cooling System (NCS) safed once again, after having been cooling for about 4 days since its restart. More... NICMOS / NCS Cooldown Restart Dec 16, 2008 At 1:20pm EST Tuesday 16 December 2008, the compressor on the NICMOS Cooling System / NICMOS Cryo-cooler (NICMOS NCS/NCC) was restarted and cooling More... NICMOS-NCS/NCC Status Update Dec 01, 2008 Following the recent decision to postpone SM4, a restart of the NCS/NCC cryocooler system was attempted on Nov 18, 2008 since the system had warmed More... NICMOS / NCS Safing and Status Sept 20, 2008 As part of the preparations for Servicing Mission 4 (SM4), the flight software for the spacecraft computer (NSSC-I) had to be updated in order to More... Summary of NICMOS SMOV4 Plans ISR Available This ISR outlines the NICMOS plan for Servicing Mission Observatory Verification 4 (SMOV4). It presents the NICMOS requirements, the planned More... Verifying the NICMOS Count Dependent Non-Linearity Correction ISR available A new NICMOS ISR that re-investigates the NICMOS count dependent non-linearity, using the flat field lamps to reach high count regimes is available. More... New TIR about Light leaks from NICMOS flatfield lamps into WFPC2 is available. A new TIR characterizing the light leaks from the NICMOS internal flat-field lamps into WFPC2 is available. A set of images is taken with WFPC2 using More... Improvements to Calnica ISR Available ISR describing a number of improvements to Calnica, the STSDAS task that performs routine instrumental calibration of NICMOS raw images is available. More... Bright Earth Persistence ISR Available ISR showing the presence of image persistence in NICMOS data due to prior saturation of the array by the bright Earth as well as an algorithm to More... NICMOS Safing and Recovery On Sept. 1, 2007 NICMOS entered safe mode. More... Calibration Plans ISR Available Details of Cycle 15 Calibration Plans More... Time Dependent Flat-fields ISR Available Describes the new time-dependent flats More... NICMOS Focus Update ISR Available Describes the latest focus status More... New SAAclean ISR Available Describes the new PyRAF task More...

What's new on the Bulletin Board

NICMOS Forum

NICMOS / NCS Status
Fri Jan 23, 2009 9:06 pm thatte
NICMOS / NCS Safing Anomaly and Status
Thu Jan 08, 2009 11:24 am DanBatcheldor
NICMOS / NCS Cooldown Restart
Thu Dec 18, 2008 2:12 pm thatte
NICMOS-NCS/NCC Status Update
Mon Dec 01, 2008 2:09 pm thatte
NICMOS / NCS Safing and Status
Sun Sep 21, 2008 8:23 pm thatte

New in the Last 45 Days

NICMOS ISR-2009-004: NICMOS Photometric Calibration Pipeline
We present the details of the NICMOS Photometric Calibration Pipeline used to generate aperture photometry. We present an overview of the different corrections employed, explain components of the pipeline and also outline the types of photometric and statistical data products created. In de Jong et al. (in preparation) this photometry will be used to determine the photometric calibration constants stored in the PHOTTAB reference files.
A. C. Viana 29 Jun 2009 (pdf)

NICMOS ISR 2009-006: NICMOS Grism Wavelength Calibration
As part of the Cycle 16 NICMOS calibration program, new observations of planetary nebulae were obtained using all three NICMOS grisms (G096, G141, and G206). The aim of these observations was to re-derive the dispersion relations for the grism modes of NICMOS as well as to examine and parametrize any field dependence of the dispersion relation within the field of view of the instrument. In this ISR, we present updated versions of the dispersion relations of the G096, G141, and G206 grisms. While the field dependence is small (1-2% peak to peak variation), we also compute two dimensional polynomial solutions to compute more exact dispersion relations anywhere in the field of view of NICMOS.
N. Pirzkal 26 Jun 2009 (pdf)

NICMOS ISR 2009-003: Updates to Calnica: Using Temperature
This report describes how the calnica data reduction software implements temperature dependent reference files in order to correct for temperature dependent variations in the dark current, the flat-fields, and the flux calibration. We describe in detail the logic used by the software to decide when to apply a temperature dependent correction and which temperature to use in that case.
T. Dahlen 26 Jun 2009 (pdf)

NICMOS ISR 2009-002: Temperature Dependent Dark Reference Files: Linear Dark and Amplifier Glow Components
This report describes the investigation of the temperature dependence of the linear dark and amplifier glow components of the NICMOS temperature dependent *_tdd.fits dark reference files in the post-NCS era, 2002-2008. We find a significant temperature dependence of the amplifier glow signal with higher counts at higher temperature when using the bias-derived detector temperature. The linear dark should also be dependent on temperature, however, the expected change in dark current should to be smaller than the scatter introduced from the read noise. This is consistent with what we find. We also describe how the calnica reduction software uses the temperature dependent dark components when calibrating NICMOS images.
T. Dahlen 08 Jun 2009 (pdf)

NICMOS ISR 2009-001: New Bad Pixel Mask Reference Files for the Post-NCS Era
The last determined bad pixel masks for the three NICMOS cameras were made in September 2002. Those masks were created using data from calibration programs following the installation of the NCS and are therefore based on the relatively limited data set available at the time. Since then, the NICMOS calibration monitoring programs have regularly obtained calibration images of both flat-fields and darks, images used to create the mask reference files. With numerous images taken during a long base-line (2002-2008), this data set allows us to create high signal-to-noise reference files, as well as investigate any temporal dependence of the mask files. In this ISR we describe the creation of new mask files based on this extended data set and compare the new masks with the previous versions. The new masks created contain a higher number of bad pixels compared to the old versions, while the number of pixels thought to be affected by “grot” is lower.
E. Barker, T. Dahlen 08 Jun 2009 (pdf)


		What's new on the Bulletin Board
		NICMOS Forum NICMOS / NCS Status Fri Jan 23, 2009 9:06 pm thatte NICMOS / NCS Safing Anomaly and Status Thu Jan 08, 2009 11:24 am DanBatcheldor NICMOS / NCS Cooldown Restart Thu Dec 18, 2008 2:12 pm thatte NICMOS-NCS/NCC Status Update Mon Dec 01, 2008 2:09 pm thatte NICMOS / NCS Safing and Status Sun Sep 21, 2008 8:23 pm thatte


		New in the Last 45 Days
		NICMOS ISR-2009-004: NICMOS Photometric Calibration Pipeline We present the details of the NICMOS Photometric Calibration Pipeline used to generate aperture photometry. We present an overview of the different corrections employed, explain components of the pipeline and also outline the types of photometric and statistical data products created. In de Jong et al. (in preparation) this photometry will be used to determine the photometric calibration constants stored in the PHOTTAB reference files. A. C. Viana 29 Jun 2009 (pdf) NICMOS ISR 2009-006: NICMOS Grism Wavelength Calibration As part of the Cycle 16 NICMOS calibration program, new observations of planetary nebulae were obtained using all three NICMOS grisms (G096, G141, and G206). The aim of these observations was to re-derive the dispersion relations for the grism modes of NICMOS as well as to examine and parametrize any field dependence of the dispersion relation within the field of view of the instrument. In this ISR, we present updated versions of the dispersion relations of the G096, G141, and G206 grisms. While the field dependence is small (1-2% peak to peak variation), we also compute two dimensional polynomial solutions to compute more exact dispersion relations anywhere in the field of view of NICMOS. N. Pirzkal 26 Jun 2009 (pdf) NICMOS ISR 2009-003: Updates to Calnica: Using Temperature This report describes how the calnica data reduction software implements temperature dependent reference files in order to correct for temperature dependent variations in the dark current, the flat-fields, and the flux calibration. We describe in detail the logic used by the software to decide when to apply a temperature dependent correction and which temperature to use in that case. T. Dahlen 26 Jun 2009 (pdf) NICMOS ISR 2009-002: Temperature Dependent Dark Reference Files: Linear Dark and Amplifier Glow Components This report describes the investigation of the temperature dependence of the linear dark and amplifier glow components of the NICMOS temperature dependent *_tdd.fits dark reference files in the post-NCS era, 2002-2008. We find a significant temperature dependence of the amplifier glow signal with higher counts at higher temperature when using the bias-derived detector temperature. The linear dark should also be dependent on temperature, however, the expected change in dark current should to be smaller than the scatter introduced from the read noise. This is consistent with what we find. We also describe how the calnica reduction software uses the temperature dependent dark components when calibrating NICMOS images. T. Dahlen 08 Jun 2009 (pdf) NICMOS ISR 2009-001: New Bad Pixel Mask Reference Files for the Post-NCS Era The last determined bad pixel masks for the three NICMOS cameras were made in September 2002. Those masks were created using data from calibration programs following the installation of the NCS and are therefore based on the relatively limited data set available at the time. Since then, the NICMOS calibration monitoring programs have regularly obtained calibration images of both flat-fields and darks, images used to create the mask reference files. With numerous images taken during a long base-line (2002-2008), this data set allows us to create high signal-to-noise reference files, as well as investigate any temporal dependence of the mask files. In this ISR we describe the creation of new mask files based on this extended data set and compare the new masks with the previous versions. The new masks created contain a higher number of bad pixels compared to the old versions, while the number of pixels thought to be affected by “grot” is lower. E. Barker, T. Dahlen 08 Jun 2009 (pdf)