Autofilet.pro: An Improved Method for Automated Removal of Herring-bone Pattern Noise from CCD Data

We present an improved method for the automatic removal of the highly variable pattern-noise that was introduced in HST/STIS CCD data when it was switched to its redundant (``Side-2'') electronics in July 2001. While mainly a cosmetic nuisance for work on bright objects, this ``herring-bone'' noise severely limits the sensitivity at optical wavelengths for projects that aim to push STIS to its design limits. We build on the Fourier filtering technique described by Brown (2001) and present a method to automatically find and remove the power associated with the noise patterns in frequency space, while avoiding the introduction of ringing (aliasing) around genuine astronomical signal--in particular around stellar images, spectroscopic (emission) lines, and cosmic ray hits. We implement this method as an IDL procedure and show several applications. Details of the method will be discussed in Jansen et al. 2003.