WFPC2 drizzling cookbooks
Last updated 18 September 2009 by Matt McMaster

NOTE: You may use the c0m/c1m files you now receive from the archive 'as is', there is no need to convert them to GEIS format using STRFITS as mentioned in the cookbooks listed below. If you have WFITS (c0f/c1f) data, then please follow the instructions for converting your data to GEIS format as they appear in the cookbooks.
Target is on
PC chip only
Target is on
WF chip/s
Single images
(transient/moving targets)
Cookbook
Jupiter
Cookbook
No dithering
(CR-SPLITs)
Cookbook Cookbook
Simple 2-3 point dithers
and small mosaics
Cookbook Cookbook
Subsampling
4-point dither box
Cookbook
NGC 5315
Cookbook
NGC 2440*
Large mosaics or
complex datasets
N/A Cookbook

* See a visual comparison of the drizzled output from simple vs subsampling dithers. Links to more sample datasets will be added.

The HST calibration pipeline does not automatically drizzle (combine and clean) associated WFPC2 datasets, i.e. datasets employing a dither or mosaic pointing pattern (or a pattern defined with POS TARGs). The online cookbooks above provide reasonable first-pass parameters for quickly drizzling various types of WFPC2 datasets using PyDrizzle and MultiDrizzle. Select the cookbook that best represents your dataset, with regards to target placement and pointing strategy. For any given dataset, a few trial-and-error iterations are typically necessary to produce optimal results, so some guidance on inspecting your output and experimenting with parameters is included in each cookbook. Below some cookbooks are links to well-documented sample datasets, which illustrate the processing in greater detail (see their README files).

General tips

Specific applications of these tips appear in many of the cookbooks and sample datsets above.

Reference documents

Fruchter, A. S. & Hook, R. N. 2002, Drizzle: A Method for the Linear Reconstruction of Undersampled Images, PASP 114, 144 (astro-ph/9808087)

Koekemoer, A. M., Fruchter, A. S., Hook, R. N., & Hack, W. 2002, MultiDrizzle: An Integrated Pyraf Script for Registering, Cleaning and Combining Images, HST Calibration Workshop, Ed. S. Arribas, A. M. Koekemoer, B. Whitmore (STScI: Baltimore), p.337

Koekemoer, A. M., et al. 2002, HST Dither Handbook, Version 2.0 (Baltimore: STScI).