Characterization and Calibration of the Infrared Spectrograph on the Spitzer Space Telescope

Details Characterization and Calibration of the Infrared Spectrograph on the Spitzer Space Telescope Characterization and Calibration of the Infrared Spectrograph on the Spitzer Space Telescope

Jan 2011

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011aas...21725422l&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #217, #254.22; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 43, 2011

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

Throughout the 5.7-year period when the Spitzer Space Telescope operated at cryogenic temperatures, the Infrared Spectrograph (IRS) repeatedly observed a small set of standard stars. For a subset of the standards, the spectroscopic observations were supplemented with photometry at 22 um from the Red Peak-Up array in the Short-Low (SL) module. This subset included the K giants HR 6348, HD 166780 and HD 173511, and the A dwarfs alpha Lac and delta UMi. Analysis of the peak-up photometry reveals small temporal changes in sensitivity which require adjustments for precise photometry. In addition, the data show subtle non-linearities, with a change in sensitivity of roughly 2% over an order of magnitude in flux density. The narrow slit in the SL module makes it susceptible to pointing-induced errors in the apparent brightness of a source, because a slight shift in pointing changes the fraction of the point-spread function (PSF) truncated by the slit edges. An investigation of repeated spectroscopy of the standard stars reveals that multiplicative corrections for these pointing-induced throughput errors are valid in most cases. Only when 15% or more of the flux from a source is lost do the changes in the slope exceed 2%. We have also used the repeated observations of the standards to construct spectral templates for them which can be used as truth spectra for calibration. Most of the standards are well behaved, with the exception of alpha Lac, which deviates from a Rayleigh-Jeans tail at the longest wavelengths by a few percent. This possible excess may indicate the presence of a cool debris disk.

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