SAGE-SMC MIPS Catalog Definition

SAGE-SMC Overview

The SAGE-SMC project is a Cycle 4 legacy program on the Spitzer Space Telescope, entitled, SAGE-SMC: Surveying the Agents of Galaxy Evolution in the Tidally-Disrupted, Low-Metallicity Small Magellanic Cloud, with Karl Gordon (STScI) as the PI. The project overview and initial results are described in a paper by Gordon et al. (2010, in prep). The SMC was mapped at two different epochs dubbed Epochs 1 and 2 separated by 3 (IRAC) and 9 (MIPS) months, as this provides a 90-degree roll angle in the orientation of the detectors, which optimally removes the striping artifacts in MIPS and artifacts along columns and rows in the IRAC image data. In addition, these two epochs are useful constraints of source variability expected for evolved stars and some young stellar ob jects (YSOs). The IRAC and MIPS observations from the S3MC pathfinder survey of the inner 3 sq. deg. of the SMC (PI: Bolatto, referred to as Epoch 0) have been reduced using the same software.

The SAGE-SMC project page can be found here. Also provided with the data release is the SAGE-SMC data delivery documentation [PDF].

SAGE-SMC MIPS 24 um Full List and Catalog Criteria

To be included in each single epoch catalog, each 24 um source has to meet a number of criteria. The source had to be nearly point like with a correlation value >0.89. This removed approximately 2/3 of the entries in the single epoch source lists. In regions where there is a significant structure in the surrounding region (identified as having a sigma > 0.25 in a 120" width square box), the source had to have a correlation value >0.91. This requirement removed a small number of sources (70). Finally, all sources had to have signal-to-noise (S/N) values >5. The S/N used was that estimated from the StarFinder code using the mosaic uncertainty image added in quadrature with an 0.6% error due to the background subtraction. This removed 700 sources. The final Epoch 1 catalog likely has a few remaining unreliable sources, estimated to be at less than the 1% level. The Full List contains ALL sources extracted from the MIPS 24 um mosaics, thus a user should be aware that it contains spurious sources. For more details, see Section 4.1 of the SAGE-SMC Data Delivery Document [PDF].

SAGE-SMC MIPS Catalog Column Descriptions

Gator serves the following SAGE-SMC MIPS catalogs and archives:
MIPS 24 um Epoch 1 Catalog (29 columns [29 delivered + 5 IRSA-created], 16,299 data rows)
MIPS 24 um Epoch 1 Full List (29 columns [29 delivered + 5 IRSA-created], 66,481 data rows)
MIPS 24 um Combined Epoch Catalog (29 columns [29 delivered + 5 IRSA-created], 38,647 data rows)
MIPS 24 um Combined Epoch Full List (29 columns [29 delivered + 5 IRSA-created], 153,205 data rows)
MIPS 70 um Combined Epoch Catalog (29 columns [29 delivered + 5 IRSA-created], 939 data rows)
MIPS 70 um Combined Epoch Full List (29 columns [29 delivered + 5 IRSA-created], 6,123 data rows)
MIPS 160 um Combined Epoch Catalog (29 columns [29 delivered + 5 IRSA-created], 132 data rows)
MIPS 160 um Combined Epoch Full List (29 columns [29 delivered + 5 IRSA-created], 953 data rows)

In the column descriptions below, ch refers to the MIPS channel (24 um, 70 um, or 160 um).

 
Column Name Data Type Units Nulls Allowed Column Description
globalSourceID 
int nUnique identification number of each source in the catalog
sourceCatalog 
char nCharacter string identifier for source catalog
epoch 
char nCharacter string identifier for the epoch of the observation of the source, i.e. "epoch 1", "epoch 2", "epoch 1+2",...
designation 
char nSAGE-SMC source designation name.
Designation is
  SST = Spitzer Space Telescope
  M1  = MIPS 24um, M2 = MIPS 70um, M3 = MIPS 160um
  SAGE
  1   = epoch 1+2
  C   = Catalog
  J   = 2000.0 epoch
  HHMMSS.SS   Right ascension (hr, min, sec) of source
  sDDMMSS.S   Declination (deg, min, sec) of source

ra 
doubledegnRight ascension (J2000)
dec 
doubledegnDeclination (J2000)
dra 
doublearc secondsnError in right ascension
ddec 
doublearc secondsnError in declination
confch 
int yConfusion Flag for ch, currently unused
fluxch 
doublemJyych flux
dfluxch 
doublemJyych 1 sigma error
magch 
doublemagych magnitude
dmagch 
doublemagych 1 sigma error
skych 
realMJy/sryLocal sky background for ch, computed by measuring the surface brightness at the source location in the source subtracted image. This background includes contributions from the zodiacal light, Milky Way foreground emission, and extended emission in the LMC.
SNch 
real ych Signal/Noise
flagch 
int yThe flag currently refers to how many times a source was observed by different AORs in a single epoch. If it was observed more than once, the reported flux is the average of the multiple observations.
correlationch 
double y The value of the correlation indicates how close this source PSF is to a point source.
mmmSkymodech 
double nScalar giving estimated mode of the sky values
mmmSigmach 
double nScalar giving standard deviation of the peak in the sky histogram
mmmSkewch 
double nScalar giving skewness of the peak in the sky histogram
mmmNskych 
double nNumber of points used to determine the sky values for mmmSkymodech, mmmSigmach and mmmSkewch
averageCoveragech 
double nThe average coverage (# of independent observations per pixel)
AORNumberch 
int nRequest key for the 1st AOR within which the source appears (24um catalogs and full lists only)
versionNo 
smallfloat nVersion number assigned by MIPS/IRAC pipeline team
versionDate 
char nDate catalog was produced in the following format, "mon dd yyyy", "Dec 5 2007"
cx 
double nx of unit vector on the unit sphere for ra,dec of this source
cy 
double ny of unit vector on the unit sphere for ra,dec of this source
cz 
double nz of unit vector on the unit sphere for ra,dec of this source
htmIDlong nThe Hierchical Triangular Mesh partition, computed at index level 20, in which this source lies.