Journal
MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
Volume 474, Issue 4, Pages 5459-5478Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stx3073
Keywords
methods: data analysis; surveys; infrared: general
Categories
Funding
- Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- National Science Foundation
- Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
- U.S. Department of Energy
- Japanese Monbukagakusho
- Max Planck Society
- Higher Education Funding Council for England
- American Museum of Natural History
- Astrophysical Institute Potsdam
- University of Basel
- University of Cambridge
- Case Western Reserve University
- University of Chicago
- Drexel University
- Fermilab
- Institute for Advanced Study
- Japan Participation Group
- Johns Hopkins University
- Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics
- Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology
- Korean Scientist Group
- Chinese Academy of Sciences
- Los Alamos National Laboratory
- Max-Planck-Institute for Astronomy
- Max-Planck-Institute for Astrophysics
- New Mexico State University
- Ohio State University
- University of Pittsburgh
- University of Portsmouth
- Princeton University
- United States Naval Observatory
- University of Washington
- Institute for Astronomy
- University of Hawaii
- Pan-STARRS Project Office
- Max-Planck Society
- Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg
- Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, Garching
- Durham University
- University of Edinburgh
- Queen's University Belfast
- Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
- Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network Incorporated
- National Central University of Taiwan
- Space Telescope Science Institute
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration through the Planetary Science Division of the NASA Science Mission Directorate [NNX08AR22G]
- National Science Foundation [AST-1238877]
- University of Maryland
- Eotvos Lorand University
- Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
- STFC [ST/N005805/1, ST/M007626/1] Funding Source: UKRI
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In this paper, we describe the routine photometric calibration of data taken with the VISTA infrared camera (VIRCAM) instrument on the ESO Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) telescope. The broad-band ZYJHKs data are directly calibrated from Two Micron all Sky Survey (2MASS) point sources visible in every VISTA image. We present the empirical transformations between the 2MASS and VISTA, and Wide-Field Camera and VISTA, photometric systems for regions of low reddening. We investigate the long-term performance of VISTA+VIRCAM. An investigation of the dependence of the photometric calibration on interstellar reddening leads to these conclusions: (1) For all broad-band filters, a linear colour-dependent correction compensates the gross effects of reddening where E(B - V) < 5.0. (2) For Z and Y, there is a significantly larger scatter above E(B - V) = 5.0, and insufficient measurements to adequately constrain the relation beyond this value. (3) The JHKs filters can be corrected to a few per cent up to E(B - V) = 10.0. We analyse spatial systematics over month-long time-scales, both inter-and intradetector and show that these are present only at very low levels in VISTA. We monitor and remove residual detector-to-detector offsets. We compare the calibration of the main pipeline products: pawprints and tiles. We show how variable seeing and transparency affect the final calibration accuracy of VISTA tiles, and discuss a technique, grouting, for mitigating these effects. Comparison between repeated reference fields is used to demonstrate that the VISTA photometry is precise to better than similar or equal to 2 per cent for the YJHKs bands and 3 per cent for the Z bands. Finally, we present empirically determined offsets to transform VISTA magnitudes into a true Vega system.
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