Another COS Dark Correction (ACDC) ⚡

Another dark correction?

COS spectroscopic science in the extreme UV regime is limited by detector background noise. The COS pipeline, CalCOS performs a basic background subtraction, but for low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) observations, a more nuanced approach is necessary to fully capitalize on COS's FUV capabilities. In order to achieve the maximum scientific value of the COS instrument, we have a designed a custom characterization and correction of the COS FUV dark rate, acdc.

With acdc, we can:

• create and maintain databases needed to measure the dark rate as a function of time, HST position, PHA, solar activity, and more
• create COS/FUV superdarks
• use superdarks to perform custom dark corrections
• analyze the efficacy of custom dark-corrected COS data

For full usage instructions, refer to the documentation on ReadTheDocs.

Installation

Create a conda environment

If you do not already have Conda installed, you need to download and install either Miniconda or Anaconda. Miniconda provides a bare minimum Conda environment. Anaconda provides a full Conda root environment along with many other tools, libraries, and utilities.

• get Miniconda
• get Anaconda

Create a conda enviornment to use acdc:

conda create -n <env_name> python=<version>
conda activate <env_name>
pip install .

where <env_name> is the name of the environment that will be created. You need at least python version 3.9, so fill in <version> with whatever version >=3.9 that you desire.

Install the latest stable version

The easiest way to install acdc is to use pip:

pip install acdc-hst

Important

The package name on PyPi and the name of this repo, acdc-hst, are different than the imported package name, acdc. That is, you import the package as import acdc.

Install the development version

First clone this repo. Then cd into the cloned repository and execute:

pip install .

Usage

For full usage instructions, refer to the documentation on ReadTheDocs.

Building the docs locally

To build the documentation locally, for testing, first clone this repository then navigate into the repo and follow these commands:

pip install ".[docs]"
cd docs/
make html

It will take a minute or two to build all the docs. Once finished, you can open the docs in your default web browser with the following command:

open _build/html/index.html 

From there you can click and navigate the webpage as if it were hosted online normally.