Table of Contents NICMOS Data Handbook List of Figures List of Tables Preface How to Use this Handbook Typographic Conventions Visual Cues Comments Chapter 1: Instrument Overview 1.1 Instrument Overview 1.2 Detector Readout Modes 1.2.1 MULTIACCUM 1.2.2 ACCUM 1.2.3 BRIGHTOBJ 1.2.4 RAMP Chapter 2: Data Structures 2.1 NICMOS Data Files 2.1.1 File Name Suffixes 2.1.2 Science Data Files 2.1.3 Auxiliary Data Files 2.2 Header Keywords 2.3 Working with NICMOS Files 2.4 From the Phase II Proposal to Your Data 2.5 Paper Products Chapter 3: Calibration 3.1 Pipeline Processing, OTFR, and the HST Archive 3.2 NICMOS Calibration Software 3.2.1 The Calibration Pipeline 3.2.2 Software for Grism Data Reduction 3.3 Basic Data Reduction 3.3.1 CalTempFromBias 3.3.2 CALNICA 3.3.3 Runcalsaa 3.4 Mosaicing/Drizzling 3.4.1 MultiDrizzle 3.4.2 Calnicb Processing 3.5 Recalibration 3.5.1 Why Recalibrate? 3.5.2 Recalibrating the Data 3.6 Calibration Goals and Plans 3.6.1 Calibration Accuracies 3.6.2 Monitoring Programs 3.6.3 Special/Legacy Programs 3.6.4 SMOV Carry-over programs 3.6.5 Calibration in Previous Cycles 3.6.6 Special Calibrations Chapter 4: Anomalies and Error Sources 4.1 NICMOS Problems Checklist 4.2 NICMOS Dark Current and Bias 4.2.1 Dark Current 4.2.2 Bias, Shading, and “Pedestal” 4.2.3 Dark Reference Files 4.2.4 Cures: How To Get Rid of What's Left 4.3 Bars 4.4 Detector Nonlinearity Issues 4.4.1 Nonlinearity Calibrations 4.4.2 Non-Zero zeroth Read Correction for Bright Sources 4.4.3 Uncorrected Saturation 4.5 Count Rate Non-Linearity 4.6 Flat Fielding 4.6.1 Characteristics of NICMOS Flat Fields 4.6.2 Temperature-dependent Flat Fields 4.6.3 Color Dependence of Flat Fields 4.7 Pixel Defects and Bad Imaging Regions 4.7.1 Hot Pixels, Cold Pixels, and Grot 4.7.2 Erratic Middle Column/Row. 4.7.3 Coronagraphic Hole 4.7.4 Vignetting 4.8 Effects of Overexposure 4.8.1 Photon Persistence 4.8.2 Cosmic Ray Persistence 4.8.3 Bright Earth Persistence (BEP) 4.8.4 Amplifier Ringing (The “Mr. Staypuft” Anomaly) 4.8.5 Optical Ghost Images 4.9 Cosmic Rays of Unusual Size 4.10 Scattered Earthlight Chapter 5: Data Analysis 5.1 STSDAS Software 5.2 Photometric Calibrations 5.2.1 Units for NICMOS Photometry 5.2.2 Fluxes and Magnitude Zeropoints 5.2.3 Photometric Corrections 5.2.4 Absolute Photometry for Emission Line Filters 5.2.5 Absolute Spectrophotometry with NICMOS Grisms 5.3 Astrometry, Pixel scales, and Geometric Distortion 5.3.1 Pixel Scales 5.3.2 Geometric Distortion 5.3.3 Drizzling 5.3.4 Absolute Astrometry 5.4 PSF Subtraction 5.4.1 Impact of Instrumental Effects on PSF Subtraction 5.5 Coronagraphic Reductions 5.5.1 Data Products and File Structures 5.5.2 Coronagraphic Acquisitions 5.5.3 Positions of the Hole and Target 5.5.4 Recalibrating Coronagraphic Images 5.5.5 Reducing and Co-adding Coronagraphic Images 5.6 Analysis of Polarization Images 5.6.1 Introduction 5.6.2 Theory 5.6.3 A Useful Script for Polarization Analysis 5.7 Grism Data Reduction 5.7.1 Extraction Software 5.7.2 Processing
