Least Asymmetry Centering Method and Comparisons

    Authors

    N. B. Lust; D. Britt; J. Harrington; S. Nymeyer; K. B. Stevenson; E. L. Ross; W. Bowman;J. Fraine

    Comments

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    Abbreviated Journal Title

    Publ. Astron. Soc. Pac.

    Keywords

    SPITZER-SPACE-TELESCOPE; Astronomy & Astrophysics

    Abstract

    The interpretation of astronomical photometry, astrometry, and orbit determination data depends on accurately and consistently identifying the center of the target object's photometric point spread function in the presence of noise. We introduce a new technique, called least asymmetry, which is designed to find the point about Which the distribution is most symmetric. This technique, in addition to the commonly used techniques Gaussian fitting and center of light, was tested against synthetic datasets under realistic ranges of noise and photometric gain. With subpixel accuracy, we compare the determined centers to the known centers and evaluate each method against the simulated conditions. We find that in most cases center of light performs the worst, while Gaussian fitting and least asymmetry are alternately better under different circumstances. Using a real point response function with "reasonable signal-to-noise," we find that least asymmetry provides the most accurate center estimates, and Gaussian centering is the most precise. The least asymmetry routine implemented in the Python Programming Language can be found at https://github.com/natelust/least_asymmetry.

    Journal Title

    Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific

    Volume

    126

    Issue/Number

    946

    Publication Date

    1-1-2014

    Document Type

    Article

    Language

    English

    First Page

    1092

    Last Page

    1101

    WOS Identifier

    WOS:000347458900002

    ISSN

    0004-6280

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