Technical Accomplishments

Instrument Performance Characterization & Calibration

STIS optical design.

The operation, calibration, and performance monitoring of space-based instruments is a challenging task. Most NASA astronomy missions expend considerable effort in this area, and also in documenting the instrument performance for end users; this provides high leverage for the community to generate science results with their data. During my career I was part of a team that was responsible for the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS), one of the most heavily used instruments on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST).

I performed the full range of Instrument Scientist activities, including:

• instrument signature characterization and calibration
• creation of calibration reference files
• authoring STIS Instrument Science Reports (see my publication list)
• contributed material to the STIS Instrument Manual, the HST Data Handbook
• performed technical and safety reviews of observing programs
• created web-based tools to support proposal preparation

Technical Documentation

I’ve compiled and authored a number of user-facing documents that describe instruments and data processing including:

The NOAO Data Handbook describes NOAO archived data products, their processing, and the means to discover and access the data. After an introduction the NOAO Science Archive, each chapter describes an optical or IR camera design and operation, and the processing algorithms that are used to produce science-ready data products. The chapters conclude with notes on instrument foibles, limits to the quality of the calibration, and a bibliography of technical background literature.

The GMOS Data Reduction Cookbook provides an overview of the design of these twin imaging spectrographs, installation of the processing software, retrieval of data from the Gemini Observatory Archive, construction of a database of observations, and a high-level overview of the data reduction processing. The data reduction for each observing configuration (imaging, long-slit, multi-object slits, and IFU) are described in detail; data reduction scripts are offered for the IRAF cl and python/PyRAF.

The C/KOSMOS Data Reduction Cookbook describes the design, calibration, and performance of these twin imaging spectrographs. It also describes the observing configurations, types of observations, data retrieval from the archive, the data products themselves, and the construction of a database of observations. Lightweight scripts are offered for constructing calibration reference files, which enables data reduction with standard IRAF tools.

The LSST Data Challenge Handbook described the large legacy datasets (mostly SDSS) that were processed to assess the performance and scientific accuracy of the prototype Large Synoptic Survey Telescope Data Management System. This Handbook described the input and output data products, the processing algorithms, and the quantitative assessment of the scientific fidelity. This document is obsolete now that LSST has entered the construction phase, and the DMS has evolved considerably since then.