The HST Frontier Fields: High-Level Science Data Products and Releases
Abstract
The Hubble Space Telescope Frontier Fields program is a large Director's Discretionary program of 840 orbits, to obtain ultra-deep observations of six strong lensing clusters of galaxies, together with parallel deep blank fields, probing the most distant galaxies currently observable. HST observations for this program have so far been obtained on Abell 2744, MACS J0416.1-2403, MACS J0717.5+3745 and MACS J1149.5+2223, with ACS (F435W, F606W, F814W) and WFC3/IR (F105W, F125W, F140W, F160W) on both the main cluster and the parallel field in each case, while the remaining two clusters are scheduled to be completed within the next year. The high-level science data products are presented here, including all the full-depth distortion-corrected mosaics and associated products for each cluster, which are science-ready to facilitate the construction of lensing models as well as enabling a wide range of other science projects. Many improvements beyond default calibration for ACS and WFC3/IR are implemented in these data products, as well as improvements in astrometric alignment to achieve milliarcsecond-level accuracy. The resulting high-level science products are delivered via the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST) to the community on a rapid timescale to enable the widest scientific use of these data, as well as ensuring a public legacy dataset of the highest possible quality that is of lasting value to the entire community.
- Publication:
-
IAU General Assembly
- Pub Date:
- August 2015
- Bibcode:
- 2015IAUGA..2257808K