MIPS Data Reduction Recipes

Welcome to the MIPS Data Reduction Recipes page.

This website contains step-by-step recipes for reducing data taken by the Multiband Imaging Photometer for Spitzer (MIPS).

You will likely wish to reduce your MIPS data using the MOPEX GUI. If so, we suggest you also take a look at this IRAC data reduction recipe, which includes an introduction to the MOPEX GUI.

In addition, we recommend that you consult the following resources:

1. The MIPS Data Handbook
2. The MIPS Data Features/Caveats Page
3. The Spitzer FAQ
4. The "Basic Data Reduction Steps" section near the bottom of the MIPS Data Analysis Page
5. The MOPEX Online Manual

MIPS Recipes:

Retrieving your data	This link provides both general information and specific examples on how to retrieve data, whether public or proprietary, from the Spitzer archives.
Making a MIPS-24 Mosaic: a Pleides star	In this recipe, we use the command-line version of MOPEX to mosaic small-field 24 micron photometry observations. The target is a Pleides star observed as part of the Legacy Program "The Formation and Evolution of Planetary Systems: Placing Our Solar System in Context". This recipe continues in a source extraction step.
Making a MIPS-24 Mosaic: a galaxy cluster at z = 0.7	This link provides a tutorial on how to reduce your MIPS-24 Photomery Mode observations, from start to finish, including downloading the data, recognizing artifacts in the downloaded Post-BCD data, and performing self-calibration to remove these artifacts.
MIPS-24 PRF Estimation and Point-Source Extraction	This recipe demonstrates how to use the command-line version APEX to select point sources for PRF estimation, run the PRF estimate tool, and then use the real PRF for point source extraction. Special care is taken in removing Airy rings of bright point sources as they create false detections. The final products are a table of point source fluxes and a point source subtracted mosaic image.
MIPS-24 Source Extraction: MIPSGAL	In this recipe, we use primarily the GUI version of MOPEX to perform aperture photometry on the MIPS 24 micron MIPSGAL data, which is characterized by a complicated Galactic background.
Correct a poor stimflash calibration in MIPS 70 data	In this recipe, we use the GeRT to correct for a poor stimflash calibration in 70 micron photometry observations, before running MOPEX to create the final mosaic. For those users who are not interested in diffuse extended emission, such as the ISM, this recipe then continues in a filtering step.
Filter MIPS 70 BCD frames for extended targets	This recipe describes how to use the GeRT to filter your MIPS-70 BCD frames for extended targets, e.g. galaxies. WARNING: users who are interested in extended background emission such as the ISM should *not* filter their data, as this type of emission is removed during the process. The filtered BCDs (*fbcd.fits) downloaded from the archive and created automatically with the GeRT are optimised for point sources only. Users wishing to analyse data of extended sources must either work on the non-filtered BCD frames (*_bcd.fits), or filter the BCDs with different parameters. This demonstration follows on from a previous recipe: Correcting for Bad Stim Flash Calibration in MIPS-70 data, using the same data set. We assume that you have worked through the previous recipe before beginning this one.
Recover mildly saturated sources in MIPS 70 data	This recipe describes how to use the GeRT to recover mildly saturated sources in your MIPS-70 data. MIPS BCDs are created from the raw data cubes by calculating the slopes of the data ramps for each pixel. For more information about this, see the MIPS Data Handbook and Gordon et al. 2005. Normally the BCDs use at least 4 samples to calculate the slope of the ramp, but if the pixel in question saturates before the last of these 4 samples, the pixel is flagged and masked in the BCD frame. The GeRT can be adjusted to re-make the BCDs using fewer samples, so, for example, pixels that are saturated at 4 samples, but not at 3, are recovered. The GeRT can generate BCDs using as few as 2 samples. WARNING: changing the number of samples used to calculate the slope of the data ramp will affect the calibration of the data. You must read the 70 micron calibration paper (Gordon et al. 2007, PASP, 119, 1019) if you intend to use the GeRT to recover saturated pixels in your scientific data. Obviously there are limits to the correction - pixels that are saturated before the second sample in the data ramps cannot be recovered, and so the GeRT can only work in cases of mild saturation. Here we describe how to re-create the BCDs using only 2 data samples to calculate the slope of the data ramp, so recovering the flux information from pixels that are mildly saturated in the postBCD image.
Making a MIPS-70 Mosaic: a Pleides star	In this recipe, we use the command-line version of MOPEX to mosaic small-field 70 micron photometry observations. The target is a Pleides star observed as part of the Legacy Program "The Formation and Evolution of Planetary Systems: Placing Our Solar System in Context". This recipe continues in a source extraction step.
Making a MIPS-70 Mosaic: GFLS	This recipe shows how to use the command-line version of MOPEX to create a mosaic of a portion of the MIPS 70-micron scan mode data obtained as part of the Galactic First Look Survey (GFLS).
MIPS-70 Source Extraction: COSMOS	A tutorial on how to use APEX to extract PSF Photometry from the COSMOS 70 micron scan map mosaic.
BANDMERGE	This recipe demonstrates how to run Bandmerge, the SSC-supported software to combine 2-7 ASCII tables of source positions and fluxes from different wavebands into a single merged data table.
Synthetic Photometry	A guide to estimating MIPS 24, 70, and 160 micron synthetic photometry from template spectra. IDL code is included.

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