Since the commissioning of the new science grade array some more
experience with this new detector has been gained and it has become
evident that the use of differential sky-flats to make master flats
does not work as well as with the previous arrays because the remnants
of the reset ramp is now visible in the master flat. A closer look at
the data taken with the engineering grade array when testing the new
PCB shows that the new PCB introduces a stronger and more persistent
``reset anomaly''. The consequence of this is that the method of
obtaining flat fields must be revised. Dome flats taken with multiple
reads do get rid of the reset ramp, but multiple reads require a
minimum exposure time of 20 seconds, which is too much for
differential twilight flats since the useful twilight slot is limited.
Investigations are currently being made on the quality of such
dome-flats and on the recommendations for NOTCam calibrations and data
reductions.
The imaging quality control (basically sky level and zero-point monitoring) is still handled on a manual level only. The script which reduces the standard star images, makes the photometry and feeds the result into the database needs to be finished.
Thomas Augusteijn 2009-01-15