R-band problem - no clues from photometric calibration

From: Greg Aldering (aldering@panisse.lbl.gov)
Date: Sat May 03 2003 - 19:17:52 PDT

  • Next message: Robert A. Knop Jr.: "Re: R-band problem - no clues from photometric calibration"

    Hi Rob,

    I agree with you that there isn't an obvious pattern in the
    ground-based R-band lightcurve residual that would point to the
    calibration. In parallel with your study, I examined which nights went
    into calibrating each SN using calibnights and tracker. There are cases
    where the same or similar calibration was used on SNe which are
    well-fit and those that are not; thus logic would suggest calibration
    can't cause the main problem. For completeness, I present this work
    below.

    Below I have assembled the zeropoints of all the R-band calibration in
    the calibration database. I list the zeropoint for each BTC chip, and
    list the UT date (not evening date) of the calibration. (You will
    notice the large change in zeropoint for BTC chip's 2 and 3 between
    1998 and 1999 - this is real as the CCD's were changed.) I then
    examined which SNe were observed on which chips on nights that were
    calibrated. The chip number is listed under each SN for each
    calibration night.

    98as, 98as, and 98ax were considered as having good fits, based on my
    earlier "by eye" analysis of the R-band lightcurves. Therefore one of
    things I looked for was evidence that those SNe came from different
    calibrations than the SNe with bad fits. For those, I placed an "*"
    next to the chip number. However, if a calibration was used for both a
    good- and bad-fit SN, I placed an "o" next to the chip numbers.

    You can see that the bad-fit SNe, 97eq, 98be, and 97ek, use calibration
    that was also used to calibrate SNe with good fits. This suggests that
    calibration can't be the main issue.

     
     Zeropoints by BTC CCD <- good fits -> <---- "bad R-band fits ---->
       1 2 3 4 UT date 98as 98aw 98ax 97eq 98be 98ay 98bi 97ez 97ek
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    26.54 26.27 26.69 26.72 2 10 97 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
    26.53 26.27 26.69 26.72 2 11 97 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
    26.46 26.15 26.57 26.62 3 06 97 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
    26.49 26.17 26.59 26.67 3 10 97 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
    26.67 26.12 26.72 26.57 11 28 97 0 0 0 4* 0 0 0 3* 1*
    26.59 26.18 26.57 26.56 3 01 98 4 4 3 0 4o 2* 2* 0 0
    INDEF 26.68 INDEF 26.64 1 15 99 4 0 0 4o 0 2* 0 (3) 4o
    26.60 26.52 26.90 26.64 4 12 99 0 4 3 0 0 1* 0 0 0

    Thus, my more limited study agrees with your conclusion that ground-based
    calibration isn't the solution. Since you noted a clear correlation with
    redshift, that seems to be the place to focus.

    Even so, somewhere in the paper we need to clearly demonstrate that the
    ground and space calibrations are consistent. This would be expected
    even if there were no apparent R-band mis-fits. Can you run a
    lightcurve for even one star that is measurable on both the ground and
    HST images? If that lightcurve is flat, that would be quite convincing!

    Cheers,

    Greg



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