EDecontaminating Swift UVOT Grism Observations of Transient Sources Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • 2016. The Astronomical Society of the Pacific. All rights reserved. We present a new technique of decontaminating Swift Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope grism spectra for transient objects. We describe the template image requirements and image processing steps necessary to successfully implement the empirical decontamination technique. We demonstrate the accuracy of the flux and wavelength calibrations for decontaminated spectra by comparing a spectrum of SN 2011fe with a well-calibrated, long-slit ultraviolet spectrum from the Hubble Space Telescope's Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph. We also show how the decontamination removes spurious emission lines from spectra of iPTF14bdn that otherwise could be misinterpreted as coming from the supernova. The software that implements this technique is briefly discussed and is made available to the community.

published proceedings

  • PUBLICATIONS OF THE ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY OF THE PACIFIC

altmetric score

  • 0.75

author list (cited authors)

  • Smitka, M. T., Brown, P. J., Kuin, P., & Suntzeff, N. B.

citation count

  • 7

complete list of authors

  • Smitka, Michael T||Brown, Peter J||Kuin, Paul||Suntzeff, Nicholas B

publication date

  • March 2016