Spitzer Enhanced Imaging Products (SEIP) Source List

The Spitzer Science Center and IRSA have released a set of Enhanced Imaging Products (SEIP) from the Spitzer Heritage Archive. These include Super Mosaics (combining data from multiple programs where appropriate) and a Source List of photometry for compact sources. The primary requirement on the Source List is very high reliability -- with areal coverage, completeness, and limiting depth being secondary considerations. The SEIP include data from the four channels of IRAC (3.6, 4.5, 5.8, 8 microns) and the 24 micron channel of MIPS. The full set of products for the Spitzer cryogenic mission includes around 42 million sources.

Cryogenic Release 3 includes Spitzer data taken during commissioning and cryogenic operations (Dec 2003 to May 2009), including calibration data.

To ensure high reliability, strict cuts are placed on extracted sources, and some legitimate sources may appear to be missing. These sources are removed by cuts in size, compactness, blending, shape, and SNR, along with multi-band detection requirements. In most fields, the completeness of the source list is well matched to expectations for a SNR=10 cut off. However, in extremely difficult regions, the list may be highly incomplete, especially in areas of high surface brightness and/or high source surface density (e.g. galactic star forming regions, the areas around bright sources, and areas in extended nearby galaxies).

Please include the following standard acknowledgment in any published material that makes use of this data product:

"This work is based [in part] on observations made with the Spitzer Space Telescope, which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology under a contract with NASA."

This dataset or service is made available by the Infrared Science Archive (IRSA) at IPAC, which is operated by the California Institute of Technology under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.