CEERS Epoch 1 NIRCam Imaging: Reduction Methods and Simulations Enabling Early JWST Science Results

Micaela B. Bagley*, Steven L. Finkelstein, Anton M. Koekemoer, Henry C. Ferguson, Pablo Arrabal Haro, Mark Dickinson, Jeyhan S. Kartaltepe, Casey Papovich, Pablo G. Pérez-González, Nor Pirzkal, Rachel S. Somerville, Christopher N. A. Willmer, Guang Yang, L. Y. Aaron Yung, Adriano Fontana, Andrea Grazian, Norman A. Grogin, Michaela Hirschmann, Lisa J. Kewley, Allison KirkpatrickDale D. Kocevski, Jennifer M. Lotz, Aubrey Medrano, Alexa M. Morales, Laura Pentericci, Swara Ravindranath, Jonathan R. Trump, Stephen M. Wilkins, Antonello Calabrò, M. C. Cooper, Luca Costantin, Alexander de la Vega, Bryan Hilbert, Taylor A. Hutchison, Rebecca L. Larson, Ray A. Lucas, Elizabeth J. McGrath, Russell Ryan, Xin Wang, Stijn Wuyts

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

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Abstract

We present the data release and data reduction process for the Epoch 1 NIRCam observations for the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science Survey (CEERS). These data consist of NIRCam imaging in six broadband filters (F115W, F150W, F200W, F277W, F356W and F444W) and one medium-band filter (F410M) over four pointings, obtained in parallel with primary CEERS MIRI observations. We reduced the NIRCam imaging with the JWST Calibration Pipeline, with custom modifications and reduction steps designed to address additional features and challenges with the data. Here we provide a detailed description of each step in our reduction and a discussion of future expected improvements. Our reduction process includes corrections for known prelaunch issues such as 1/f noise, as well as in-flight issues including snowballs, wisps, and astrometric alignment. Many of our custom reduction processes were first developed with prelaunch simulated NIRCam imaging over the full 10 CEERS NIRCam pointings. We present a description of the creation and reduction of this simulated data set in the Appendix. We provide mosaics of the real images in a public release, as well as our reduction scripts with detailed explanations to allow users to reproduce our final data products. These represent one of the first official public data sets released from the Directors Discretionary Early Release Science (DD-ERS) program.

Original languageEnglish
Article numberL12
Number of pages23
JournalAstrophysical Journal Letters
Volume946
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Mar-2023

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