Astrometry

Spartan IR Camera for the SOAR Telescope

Edwin Loh & A. A. Abdul Rashid
Department of Physics & Astronomy
Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824
Loh@msu.edu 517 884–5612
22 Sept 2010

Abstract

This note addresses the question of the accuracy of the world coordinate sys-
tem (WCS) in the FITS header. The existing WCS contains distortion that was
computed from the optical design. We compared the positions of the stars in a
field with those of the 2MASS catalog. There is a remaining distortion of the form
(dx, dy) = (bx x, by y). In the corner of the detector, this distortion is (dx, dy) =
(95 ± 24, −46 ± 18) mas, which is (1.4 ± 0.7, 0.7 ± 0.3) pixel.

1 Accuracy of the world coordinate system

We tested the accuracy of the world coordinate system by comparing the positions of
stars in a field in Carina with the 2MASS catalog1 .
Since the coordinates of the Telescope Control System (TCS) change (by many arc-
sec) even while tracking a star, there is a changing offset between the coordinates in the
FITS header, which comes from the TCS, and the true coordinates. We determine the
offset with the IRAF program msccmatch. We allow msccmatch only to shift the coordi-
nates. We found that the rotation was not significant.
The DAOPhot and msccmatch positions disagree by (0.2,-0.8) pixel or (14,-52) mas.
The offset between the 2MASS positions and our positions for all of the unsaturated
stars are shown in the left panel of Figure 1.
We produced a clean sample by rejecting (1) blended stars, stars for which the “blend
flag” is not 1 in any filter, which indicates more than a single component in any filter,
(2) stars for which the 2MASS positional error is greater than 110 mas, and (3) stars
which have a second star within 1 arcsec in our image. Since the pixel scales of the
2MASS catalog and our image are 2 arcsec and 68 mas, we are able to see second
1
Skrutskie, M. F., et al., 2006, AJ, 131, 1163
 1 ACCURACY OF THE WORLD COORDINATE SYSTEM

Figure 1: Offset between 2MASS positions and positions determined with DAOPhot scaled by
a factor of 100. Left: All unsaturated stars. Right: Clean stars, those which are not blended
according to 2MASS and have no nearby neighbors in our image. The large, empty arrows show
the average (scaled by 200) of the clean stars in the 3 × 3 partition of the image. The length of
the longest empty arrow, the one in the upper left, is 100 ± 40 mas.

2
 1 ACCURACY OF THE WORLD COORDINATE SYSTEM

components undetected in the 2MASS catalog. The last condition rejected 9 of 40 stars.
The right panel of Figure 1 show the offsets for the clean sample.
The world coordinate system has a distortion. We divided the clean sample into 9
subsamples by the location of the star in the 3 × 3 partition of the image. The average
offset between the 2MASS and our position for subsamples shows a pattern (empty ar-
rows in the right panel of Figure 1). The offsets of the stars on the left side point to the
right, and those of the stars on the right side point to the left.
The fit for the distortion of the form (dx, dy) = ( a x , ay ) + ( xbx , yby ) yields the value
for the distortion
(dx, dy) = (95 ± 24, −46 ± 18) mas
at the upper right corner of the detector. The standard deviation of the residuals is 76 mas
in x (right ascension) and 59 mas in y (declination).
This estimate for distortion is not at all secure. The true form for the distortion is
unknown, and the given the size of the errors, the data cannot determine the form.
Proper motion may contribute to the errors and confuse the determination of distor-
tion. At the distance of Carina 2.7 kpc2 , a transverse space motion of 60 km/s shifts the
star by 55 mas in the 11.8 yr between the 2MASS image and ours. The dispersion in the
proper motion of field stars near η Car is (σRA , σdec ) = (4.2, 2.4)] mas/yr3 , which is
(46, 26) mas for these observations.

2
Grabelsky, D. A., et al., 1988, ApJ, 331, 181.
3
Cudworth, K., Martin, S., and Degioia-Eastwood, K., 1993, AJ, 105, 1822.