1997/11/30 by David W. Hogg, Edwin L. Turner · 116 citations
Computer Science · Engineering · Environmental Science · Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics #Atmospheric and Environmental Gas Dynamics #CCD and CMOS Imaging Sensors #Computational physics #Computer science #Flux (metallurgy) #Function (biology) #Image (mathematics) #Image and Signal Denoising Methods #Mathematics #Maximum likelihood #Noise (video) #Physics #SIGNAL (programming language) #Statistical physics #Statistics #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/316173
published in Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 110(748), 727-731 (Institute of Physics) · 9 pp., accepted for publication in PASP
arxiv created 1998/02/10 · openalex publication_date 1998/06/01 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
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.