A Maximum Likelihood Method to Improve Faint‐Source Flux and Color Estimates
- Creators
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Hogg, David W.
- Turner, Edwin L.
Abstract
Flux estimates for faint sources or transients are systematically biased high because there are far more truly faint sources than bright. Corrections that account for this effect are presented as a function of signal‐to‐noise ratio and the (true) slope of the faint‐source number‐flux relation. The corrections depend on the source being originally identified in the image in which it is being photometered. If a source has been identified in other data, the corrections are different; a prescription for calculating the corrections is presented. Implications of these corrections for analyses of surveys are discussed; the most important is that sources identified at signal‐to‐noise ratios of 4 or less are practically useless.
Additional Information
© 1998 The Astronomical Society of the Pacific. Received 1997 November 12; accepted 1998 February 2. We thank Roger Blandford, John Gizis, Gerry Neugebauer, Neill Reid, and Yun Wang for useful discussions and the HDF team for planning, taking, reducing, and calibrating the HDF data. Some financial support was provided by NSF grant AST‐9529170.Attached Files
Published - Hogg_1998_PASP_110_727.pdf
Accepted Version - 9711154.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 96264
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20190611-080423958
- NSF
- AST-9529170
- Created
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2019-06-11Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-16Created from EPrint's last_modified field