WFPC2 Technical Instrument Report 08-02:

Updated Procedures for Creating a WFPC2 Yearly Superdark

-D. Thatte and J. Biretta

We describe the procedure used to make the “final” WFPC2 superdark in early 2008. The superdark file is generated from one hundred and twenty weekly dark frames taken during the previous year(s), and is used to produce weekly dark calibration files which are in turn used to calibrate all WFPC2 observations. The new procedure is similar to that used in the past, but contains important modifications to deal with the WF4 CCD anomaly, changes in how CTE is treated, and additional steps to flag variable warm pixels in the Data Quality File.

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