IRSCLEAN is an interactive IDL tool for creating bad pixel masks from Spitzer IRS BCD (and pre-BCD) image data, and "cleaning" the masked pixels in a set of data. The interactive version of the program, IRSCLEAN_MASK, is an outgrowth of the non-interactive IRSCLEAN package developed by members of the SSC IRS instrument support team and the Cornell IRS Instrument team. IRSCLEAN_MASK takes care of file input/output and queries you when it needs information.
1.1 Should I Always Run IRSCLEAN On My Data?
If your source is bright enough that the rogue pixels do not make a significant contribution to the flux, or if you were lucky enough to get a good match to the rogue pixels in background subtraction, you may choose not to clean any pixels. This is of course the best option, since "cleaning" a pixel in effect throws away the data for that pixel. The tradeoff should always be improvement in the extracted spectrum.
You should always check the match between a given rogue mask and your data. In particular the pixels in the rogue mask should be significantly brighter than their surroundings (NOTE: for background-subtracted data, rogue pixels can also be much fainter than surrounding pixels). Sometimes this is obvious from visual inspection. You can use irsclean_mask to overlay a rogue mask on your data, examine the brightness of pixels, and add or remove pixels from the mask.
1.2 What is This Document?
This document is a complete description of how to use IRSCLEAN. It tells how to install the package, explains the various kinds of data and masks that you will use, and runs through the various stages of the program. In the Appendices, we describe some extra functionality. Throughout the document you will see examples of IDL commands. Once IRSCLEAN is installed you will be able to run most of these commands using the sample data that come with the package.
1.3 What’s New In IRSCLEAN
Previous Version: 2.0
Current Version: 2.1
Changes to IRSCLEAN
(Bug Fix) Error message “READCOL: Illegal format A10 in field 0” when current version of IDLASTRO readcol.pro is used.
(Bug Fix) /HELP keyword now triggers IDL internal doc_library command, instead of missing print_header.pro.
(Incompatibility fix) Error message “Colorbar::Draw Method: Attempt to call undefined method: 'COLORBAR::POSITION'” under IDL 8.0
