Supported Software: Running SPICE
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Running SPICE
This tutorial gives a brief overview of how to do a basic extraction of a single spectrum from a single frame. SPICE can also extract spectra in batches (Batch Mode) - for more information and for further help, please see the Help function included in the GUI (click on Help > Overview), and the SPICE Examples page.
- If you haven't already downloaded and installed the SPICE GUI, do so now by following the instructions on the SPICE download page.
- If you haven't already done so, download your data from the Spitzer archive using Leopard. The data can be downloaded into any directory. For the purposes of this tutorial we will assume that you unpacked it in
/home/joe/data. - Start the SPICE GUI by running the executable file. In Linux or Solaris, the executable file is run by typing:
/your/installation/directory/spice
If you are using a Mac, you can either double click on the SPICE icon, or type:
/your/installation/directory/spice.app/Contents/MacOS/JavaApplicationStub - When SPICE launches, you are presented with an empty screen. If SPICE prompts you with an update, click "Quit now and Install" to update and re-launch the GUI.
- To get started, click on File > Open Spice Generic Template to bring up a template pipeline. The pop-up will prompt you to select a template. For the purposes of this tutorial we will assume we are looking at a relatively bright point source, so will select Point Source with Regular Extract. The pipeline should immediately load in the main window.
- In order to set up the processing flow, you need to specify your Image, Mask and Uncertainty files (*bcd.fits, *bmask.fits and *func.fits respectively). Click on the Add button to add your Image data file to the flow. Your associated Mask and Uncertainty files should be loaded automatically by SPICE. Your image files will be located in
/home/joe/data/<AORkey>/<ch*>/<bcd or pbcd>/
where <AORkey> is the AOR Key of your observations (e.g. r12345678) and <ch*> describes the IRS module (ch0, ch1, ch2, ch3 correspond to Short-Low (SL), Short-High (SH), Long-Low (LL) and Long-High (LH) modules respectively). The final subdirectory (bcd or pbcd) will depend on whether you are extracting the spectrum from the Basic Calibrated Data files (bcd) or the combined data products (pbcd - e.g. pipeline coadded files and sky-subtracted files). SPICE will display your input file in the right-hand window.
NOTE: If you attempt to select an Image file and get the error message:
ERROR: INVALID INPUT FILE. CHECK CALIBRATION VERSION: S13.2.0
then you have attempted to select a Peak-Up Imaging file instead of your spectral data. Ensure that you are trying to add a frame with an associated set of calibration files (*bmask.fits, *droop.fits, etc). - Select your Current Output Directory in the same way you selected your input files, e.g. /home/joe/data/output
- In most cases you will want to use the default calibration files and output file names, so you can generally leave those untouched. See the SPICE GUI Help function for an advanced discussion of calibration files.
- SPICE is now ready to be run using the default parameters for all of the modules. To run the processing flow all the way through, simply click on the green "play" button in the top left hand corner of the GUI. For information on the individual modules, and a discussion of the parameters, please see the Help function included in the GUI.
- The output files can be found in your Output Directory. Note that the output files are overwritten without warning when the module is re-run. Output filenames for each module are as follows:
- Profile output: /home/joe/data/output/*.profile.tbl
- Ridge output: /home/joe/data/output/*.ridge.tbl
- Extract output: /home/joe/data/output/*.extract.tbl
- Tune output: /home/joe/data/output/*.spect.tbl
