Spitzer Documentation & Tools

IRAC High Precision Photometry

Optimizing Analysis Techniques for Exoplanet and Brown Dwarf Light Curve Studies

The goal of high precision photometry is to reduce/remove correlated noise to achieve photon-noise limited photometry over all binning scales for all targets. The web pages linked from this page present the IRAC team's best understanding of sources of correlated noise and their mitigation, including techniques and recommendations ro reduce data. For more information on IRAC, see the IRAC web pages.

These pages are relevant for you if you:

  • Need photon noise limited photometry for your science goals
  • Have staring mode observations
  • Look for time-variable signals at sub-percent precision level
  • Want to learn about the instrumental effects which limit high precision photometry

Contributors to this website:

  • Jessica Krick
  • Jim Ingalls
  • Sean Carey
  • Carl Grillmair
  • Patrick Lowrance
  • Bill Glaccum
  • Jason Surace
  • Seppo Laine
  • Peter Capak

When acknowledging information presented in these IRAC high precision photometry (HPP) web pages, please use the following Bibtex citation or refer to the IRAC Instrument Handbook if the information can be found there (most of the information on IRAC HPP pages was transferred to the IRAC Instrument Handbook, DOI https://doi.org/10.26131/irsa486):

@Misc{IRACHPP,
  OPTkey =  {},
  author =  {{Krick}, J.. and {Ingalls}, J. and {Carey}, S. and {Grillmair}, C. and {Lowrance}, P. and {Glaccum}, W. and {Surace}, J. and {Laine}, S. and {Capak}, P.},
  title =  {IRAC High Precision Photometry Web Pages},
  howpublished = {\url{https://irsa.ipac.caltech.edu/data/SPITZER/docs/irac/irachpp/}},
  OPTmonth =  {},
  year =  {2015},
  OPTnote =  {},
  OPTannote =  {}
}

Winn et al. 2010

Knutson et al. 2007