High-spatial-resolution K-band Imaging of Select K2 Campaign Fields
Abstract
NASA's K2 mission began observing fields along the ecliptic plane in 2014 (Howell et al. 2014). Each observing campaign lasts ~80 days, during which high-precision optical photometry of select astrophysical targets is collected by the Kepler spacecraft. Due to the 4 arcsec pixel scale of the Kepler photometer, significant blending between the observed targets can occur (especially in dense fields close to the Galactic plane). We therefore undertook a program to use the Wide Field Camera (WFCAM) on the 3.8 m United Kingdom InfraRed Telescope (UKIRT) (Casali et al. 2007) to collect high-spatial-resolution near-infrared images of targets in select K2 campaign fields, which we report here. These 0.4 arcsec resolution K-band images offer the opportunity to perform a variety of science, including vetting exoplanet candidates by identifying nearby stars blended with the target star (Figure 1) and estimating the size, color, and type of galaxies observed by K2.
Additional Information
© 2017 American Astronomical Society. Received 2017 November 30; Accepted 2017 December 4; Published 2017 December 7. We thank Watson Varricatt and Tom Kerr for assistance in planning observations and Mike Irwin for providing prompt access to processed data. When the data reported here were acquired, UKIRT was supported by NASA and operated under an agreement among the University of Hawaii, the University of Arizona, and Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center; operations were enabled through the cooperation of the East Asian Observatory. The data reported here were obtained as part of the UKIRT Service Programme.Attached Files
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 83750
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20171208-090037155
- NASA
- Created
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2017-12-08Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-15Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Caltech groups
- Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC)