Offset and spread magnitudes of 'obs_decam+ps1_pv3 ref' run

I ran obs_decam+ps1_pv3 on single-exposure DECam mosaics of Abell 2670 in g and r bands that I downloaded from NOAO archive. And I obtained offset and spread magnitudes (‘y-axis on the upper panels and lower right panel’) referenced to the magnitudes that I got through calibration using standard star observation data (‘x-axis on the upper panels and lower left panel’), and want to know why. I confirmed my standard-star calibration using SDSS and DECaLS.

Following is the procedure that I took to run obs_decam+ps1_pv3:

  1. used Docker container ‘lsstsqre/centos:7-stack-lsst_distrib-v20_0_0’ (I tried same procedure after installing ‘newinstall.sh’ and reproduced same results.)
  2. ‘source lsstLSST.bash(.zsh for newinstalled Mac)’, ‘setup obs_decam’,
  3. retargeted ISR following 6th item on https://github.com/lsst/obs_decam
  4. I put ‘dqmask’, ‘instcal’, and ‘wtmap’ files under three directories each,
  5. ingested by running ‘ingestImagesDecam.py DATA --filetype instcal --mode=link r/instcal/*.fits.fz’
  6. downloaded PanSTARRS1 catalog fits files that cover our data, ‘config.py’, and ‘master_schema.fits’ from http://tigress-web.princeton.edu/~HSC/refcats/ps1_pv3_3pi_20170110/, and saved in ‘DATA/ref_cats/ps1_pv3_3pi_20170110/’
  7. processCcd.py DATA --rerun processCcdOutputs --id -C my_config_file.py
  8. makeDiscreteSkyMap.py DATA --id --rerun processCcdOutputs:coadd --config skyMap.projection=“STG”
  9. makeCoaddTempExp.py DATA --rerun coadd
    –selectId filter=r
    –id filter=r tract=0 patch=0,0^0,1^0,2^0,3^0,4^0,5^0,6^1,0^1,1^1,2^1,3^1,4^1,5^1,6^2,0^2,1^2,2^2,3^2,4^2,5^2,6^3,0^3,1^3,2^3,3^3,4^3,5^3,6^4,0^4,1^4,2^4,3^4,4^4,5^4,6^5,0^5,1^5,2^5,3^5,4^5,5^5,6^6,0^6,1^6,2^6,3^6,4^6,5^6,6
    –config doApplyUberCal=False doApplySkyCorr=False
  10. assembleCoadd.py DATA --rerun coadd
    –selectId filter=r
    –id filter=r tract=0 patch=0,0^0,1^0,2^0,3^0,4^0,5^0,6^1,0^1,1^1,2^1,3^1,4^1,5^1,6^2,0^2,1^2,2^2,3^2,4^2,5^2,6^3,0^3,1^3,2^3,3^3,4^3,5^3,6^4,0^4,1^4,2^4,3^4,4^4,5^4,6^5,0^5,1^5,2^5,3^5,4^5,5^5,6^6,0^6,1^6,2^6,3^6,4^6,5^6,6
  11. detectCoaddSources.py DATA --rerun coadd:coaddPhot
    –id filter=r tract=0 patch=0,0^0,1^0,2^0,3^0,4^0,5^0,6^1,0^1,1^1,2^1,3^1,4^1,5^1,6^2,0^2,1^2,2^2,3^2,4^2,5^2,6^3,0^3,1^3,2^3,3^3,4^3,5^3,6^4,0^4,1^4,2^4,3^4,4^4,5^4,6^5,0^5,1^5,2^5,3^5,4^5,5^5,6^6,0^6,1^6,2^6,3^6,4^6,5^6,6
  12. mergeCoaddDetections.py DATA --rerun coaddPhot --id filter=g^r
  13. deblendCoaddSources.py DATA --rerun coaddPhot --id filter=r
    deblendCoaddSources.py DATA --rerun coaddPhot --id filter=g
  14. measureCoaddSources.py DATA --rerun coaddPhot --id filter=r
    measureCoaddSources.py DATA --rerun coaddPhot --id filter=g
  15. mergeCoaddMeasurements.py DATA --rerun coaddPhot --id filter=r^g
  16. forcedPhotCoadd.py DATA --rerun coaddPhot:coaddForcedPhot --id filter=r
    forcedPhotCoadd.py DATA --rerun coaddForcedPhot --id filter=g
  17. rSources = butler.get(‘deepCoadd_forced_src’, {‘filter’: ‘r’, ‘tract’: 0, ‘patch’: ‘0,2’})
    rCoaddPhotoCalib = butler.get(‘deepCoadd_calexp_photoCalib’, {‘filter’: ‘r’, ‘tract’: 0, ‘patch’: ‘0,2’})
    rMags = rCoaddPhotoCalib.instFluxToMagnitude(rSources, ‘base_PsfFlux’)

My guess is that this has to do with aperture corrections. The stack applies aperture corrections so that reported fluxes are within a 4" aperture (see this Community post for details). If your standard star calibrations are reporting flux to infinity, then LSST pipeline fluxes will be systematically lower than your calibrated fluxes.

Others should feel free to correct me if I am off base, though…

Hi @duho, I was just reviewing some older Support posts and was wondering if @jeffcarlin’s suggestion was helpful, and/or if you were able to resolve this issue?

I’m sorry that I haven’t been able and not planning to continue to work on this issue, but the offset seemed to be a bit large and the two tracks on CMD are hard to explain with an aperture-correction solution.

Hi @duho - I know you said you’re not planning to work on this any more, but it just popped up so I wanted to reply anyway. If the lower-right CMD plot consists of point sources, then its two “tracks” look perfectly reasonable to me. The track at g-r ~ 0.3 is the main sequence turnoff of Milky Way halo stars, and the track at g-r ~ 1.5 consists of foreground M-dwarfs. These are features I would expect to see in any stellar CMD of this depth.