2014/01/17 by R. B. Menezes, J. E. Steiner, T. V. Ricci
Physics and Astronomy · #Adaptive optics and wavefront sensing #Astronomy #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Astrophysics #Data cube #Deconvolution #Galaxy #Integral field spectrograph #Optics #Physics #Planetary nebula #Spectral line #Spectrograph #Stars #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #Telescope #astro-ph.IM
paper · pdf · doi:10.1093/mnras/stt2381
26 pages, 24 figures, 1 table, published online in MNRAS
openalex publication_date 2014/01/17 · arxiv created 2014/01/28 · arxiv updated 2014/01/29 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We present a detailed procedure for treating data cubes obtained with the Near-Infrared Integral Field Spectrograph (NIFS) of the Gemini North telescope. This process includes the following steps: correction of the differential atmospheric refraction, spatial re-sampling, Butterworth spatial filtering, ‘instrumental fingerprint’ removal and Richardson–Lucy deconvolution. The clearer contours of the structures obtained with the spatial re-sampling, the high spatial-frequency noise removed with the Butterworth spatial filtering, the removed ‘instrumental fingerprints’ (which take the form of vertical stripes along the images) and the improvement of the spatial resolution obtained with the Richardson–Lucy deconvolution result in images with a considerably higher quality. An image of the Brγ emission line from the treated data cube of NGC 4151 allows the detection of individual ionized-gas clouds (almost undetectable without the treatment procedure) of the narrow-line region of this galaxy, which are also seen in an [O iii] image obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope. The radial velocities determined for each one of these clouds seem to be compatible with models of biconical outflows proposed by previous studies. Considering the observed improvements, we believe that the procedure we describe in this work may result in more reliable analysis of data obtained with this instrument.