Circumnuclear Dust in Luminous Early-Type Galaxies -- I. Sample Properties and Stellar Luminosity Models

This dataset contains the HST mosaic images created and described in the paper "Circumnuclear Dust in Luminous Early-Type Galaxies -- I. Sample Properties and Stellar Luminosity Models" by J. Davidson, B. Boizelle, J. Walsh, A. Barth, E. Rasmussen, A. Baker, D. Buote, J. Darling, L. Ho, K. Kabasares, and J. Cohn.

Each mosaic was created by drizzling the data to a pixel scale of 0.08 and a pixel fraction of 0.75. The data are mostly in the infrared and optical and only occasionally in the ultraviolet.

Data Structure

These data are organized by target and each target has its own .zip file. Each .zip file is organized by HST camera, then by filter. For example, for the target Hydra A, the data are sorted into the following folders:

acs_sbc

f140lp

f150lp

acs_wfc

f814w

wfc3

f110w

f160w

f475w

aligned

The aligned folder for each target contains all the aligned mosaic images. These were aligned to their respective wfc3/f160w image using TweakReg, then further corrected using interpolation to obtain sub-pixel accuracy.

File Naming

All mosaic image files for all filters follow the same naming convention: _ drz_sci.fits. For example, the Hydra A f160w mosaic is named hydraa_f160w_pxfr075_pxsc008_drz_sci.fits.

PSF files, both empirical and Tiny Tim (each drizzled to the same pixel scale and pixel fraction as the HST data), are included in each f110w and f160w folder and follow a similar naming convention. To these file names are added either *emp_psfdrz* for the empirical PSF or *psfdrz* for the Tiny Tim PSF. For example, the Hydra A f160w empirical PSF file is named hydraa_f160w_emp_psfdrz_pxfr075_pxsc008_drz_sci.fits, whereas the Tiny Tim PSF file is named hydraa_f160w_psfdrz_pxfr075_pxsc008_drz_sci.fits.

The f160w folders for all targets also contain a few extra files:

Mask files, called f160w_mask.fits in all cases, which indicate the positions and extents of all extraneous sources of light (foreground stars, background galaxies, cosmic ray hits, etc.) in the respective f160w mosaics.

A .txt file that contains the final GALFIT MGE solution and follows the naming convention _f160w_galfitmge_dustmask_tinytim_sol.txt. Note that the Tiny Tim PSF was used to obtain the final MGE solution in every case.

 A .fits file that contains the model based on the final GALFIT MGE solution. These follow the naming convention _f160w_pxfr075_pxs0080_drz_galfit_ttpsf_qbounds020.fits.

For NGC 3862 only, we also obtained an MGE solution using the empirical PSF for comparison purposes. For this target, the .txt MGE solution that utilizes the empirical PSF is named ngc3862_f160w_galfitmge_dustmask_emp_sol.txt and the corresponding model .fits file is named ngc3862_f160w_pxfr075_pxs0080_drz_galfit_cenpsf_emppsf_qbounds020.fits.

For NGC 1387, NGC 3862, NGC 4261, and NGC 4435, a second round of observations were obtained using a subarray and shorter exposure times. The f110w and f160w folders for these galaxies therefore also have a few extra files that contain the drizzled images and empirical and Tiny Tim PSFs for these subarray exposures. These files follow the same naming conventions as previously described, with the addition of *subarr* to distinguish between the full array and subarray files. For example, the NGC 1387 drizzled subarray image is named ngc1387_f160w_subarr_pxfr075_pxsc008_drz_sci.fits, whereas the full-array, longer exposure time image is named ngc1387_f160w_pxfr075_pxsc008_drz_sci.fits. Please note that these subarray images were not used in any of the final MGEs or the analysis described in the paper, but are included here for sake of completeness.

In the aligned folders, all aligned images follow the same naming convention: ___pxfr075_pxsc008_drz_align_sci.fits.