4. Tips and Tricks

This is a collection of tips and tricks that can be useful for reducing different data, or to do it slightly differently from what is presented in the example.

4.1. Sky Subtraction

For sky subtraction, there are two input parameters to skyCorrect that users should be aware of: scale_sky and offset_sky. Both serve to match the sky frames to the target frame before the subtraction. The first, scale_sky is multiplicative and is turned off by default for GSAOI, while the second, offset_sky is additive and is turned on by default for GSAOI.

The reason why offset_sky is favored for GSAOI is that often the flux in individual pixels can be very low and that is observed to make the multiplicative scale less accurate. In any case, from experience, it was found that offset_sky==True was more successful, more often, with GSAOI data, which is why it was set as the default.

Depending on the data and the science objectives, those two input parameters might have to be experimented with. The only combination we would not recommend is setting both of them on. (The software will not let you either.)

When there are offset to sky, it is likely to be because the target fills the field of view and there is no usable sky. In those cases, all sky scaling and offsetting should be turned off (skyCorrect:scale_sky=False and skyCorrect:offset_sky=False). There is no sky to measure in the target frame, any attempts at scaling or offsetting will result in an over subtraction of the sky.