FITS Files

The FITS files available in the everest catalog contain the de-trended light curves, as well as information used by everest to do customized post-processing. Each FITS file is composed of six extensions:

Note

It is highly recommended that users access the catalog through the everest user interface, as this allows for post-processing of the light curves with custom masks.

[0] Primary HDU

A header unit containing general information about the data collection for this target; this info was copied directly from the original K2 target pixel files. The VERSION and DATE tags were added to indicate the everest pipeline version and creation date, respectively.

[1] Lightcurve HDU

The main data unit containing the de-trended light curve. Again, the header keywords were taken from the equivalent extension in the original K2 target pixel files. The following everest keywords were added:

Keyword Description
MISSION The photometry mission name
VERSION The EVEREST pipeline version
DATE FITS file creation date (YYYY-MM-DD)
MODEL The name of the everest model used to de-trend
APNAME The name of the aperture used
BPAD Light curve segment overlap in cadences for mending at breakpoints
BRKPTXX Index/indices of light curve breakpoint(s)
CBVNUM Number of CBV signals to regress on
CBVNITER Number of CBV SysRem iterations
CBVWIN Window size for smoothing CBVs
CBVORD Filter order when smoothing CBVs
CDIVS Number of cross-validation subdivisions
CDPP Average de-trended CDPP
CDPPR Raw light curve CDPP
CDPPV Estimated average validation CDPP
CDPPG Average GP-de-trended CDPP
CDPPXX De-trended CDPP in light curve segment XX
CDPPRXX Raw CDPP in light curve segment XX
CDPPVXX Estimated validation CDPP in light curve segment XX
CVMIN Cross-validation objective function
GITER Number of GP optimiziation iterations
GPFACTOR GP amplitude initialization factor
GPWHITE GP white noise amplitude (e-/s)
GPRED GP red noise amplitude (e-/s)
GPTAU GP red noise timescale (days)
LAMXXYY Cross-validation parameter for segment XX and PLD order YY
RECLXXYY Cross-validation parameter for segment XX and PLD order YY (iPLD only)
LEPS Cross-validation minimum-finding CDPP tolerance
MAXPIX Maximum size of TPF aperture in pixels
NRBYXXID Nearby source XX ID number
NRBYXXX Nearby source XX X position (pixels)
NRBYXXY Nearby source XX Y position (pixels)
NRBYXXM Nearby source XX magnitude
NRBYXXX0 Nearby source reference X (pixels)
NRBYXXY0 Nearby source reference Y (pixels)
NEIGHXX Neighboring star ID used to de-trend (nPLD only)
OITER Number of outlier clipping iterations
OPTGP GP optimization performed?
OSIGMA Outlier tolerance (standard deviations)
PXXT0 Masked planet transit time (days)
PXXPER Masked planet period (days)
PXXDUR Masked planet transit duration (days)
PLDORDER PLD de-trending order
SATUR Is target saturated?
SATTOL Fractional saturation tolerance

The data container of this extension contains the following arrays:

Keyword Description
TIME The original timestamp. For K2, this is (BJD - 2454833)
CADN The original cadence number
FLUX The everest de-trended flux, same units as original SAP flux (e-/s)
FCOR The CBV-corrected de-trended flux (e-/s)
FRAW The original (raw) SAP flux
FRAW_ERR The observing errors on the raw flux
QUALITY An int64 array of quality flags for each cadence (see note below)
BKG If present, the background flux subtracted from each cadence
CBVXX The co-trending basis vectors used to produce the corrected flux FCOR

Note

The QUALITY array uses the same bit flags as K2, with the addition of four everest flags that indicate a data point was masked when computing the model:

23 Data point is flagged in the raw K2 TPF
24 Data point is a NaN
25 Data point was determined to be an outlier
26 Not used
27 Data point is during a transit/eclipse

As an example, to get the indices of all points that were flagged with bit 23 in Python, run

inds = np.where(QUALITY & 2 ** (23 - 1))[0]

Note, however, that the everest user interface provides easy access to these masks via the Everest.badmask, Everest.nanmask, Everest.outmask, and Everest.transitmask attributes.

[2] Pixels HDU

An extension containing the pixel-level light curve. The data container stores two arrays:

Keyword Description
FPIX The flux in each of the pixels in the aperture
X1N The first order PLD vectors for the neighbors (nPLD only)

[3] Aperture HDU

An extension containing the aperture mask used for PLD de-trending. Ones correspond to pixels that were included in the de-trending; zeros correspond to pixels that were ignored.

[4] Images HDU

Stores images of the full target postage stamp at three points in the light curve, for plotting purposes only.

Keyword Description
STAMP1 The postage stamp at the first cadence
STAMP2 The postage stamp at the midpoint
STAMP3 The postage stamp at the last cadence

[5] HiRes HDU

An image HDU containing a higher resolution image of the target. For K2, this is obtained from the Palomar Observatory Sky Survey.