Master thesis defense by Kostas Valeckas

Development of a Data Processing Pipeline for the Nordic Optical Telescope Transient Explorer Imagers

Abstract

This thesis describes the process of designing and implementing a framework for processing and reducing data from the Nordic Optical Telescope Transient Explorer (NTE) imagers.

The NTE imagers consist of two cameras: one equipped with a short-wave infrared detector (the near-infrared imager) and the other with a CMOS detector (the visual imager). As these imagers are still under construction, this thesis uses the NOTcam and ALFOSC cameras currently operated at the Nordic Optical Telescope as proxy instruments for the data. This thesis briefly outlines the theoretical aspects of astronomical imaging and the relevant detector characteristics required to understand the reasoning behind the implementation.

Based on the described theory, this thesis explains the different methods implemented for the data processing from both conceptual and algorithmic perspectives. Furthermore, this thesis presents preliminary test results and discusses the current shortcomings of the software, including both known missing implementations and performance limitations.

Guidance on how support for the NTE imagers should be implemented is also provided. The work presented in this thesis resulted in a fully automated framework capable of calibrating raw frames, performing sky subtraction,

image stacking, source detection and extraction, and magnitude estimation for NOTcam and ALFOSC data with promising results. However, further development and more extensive testing is required before the pipeline can be fully deployed as an online solution for automatic data reduction at the observatory.

Censor

Frank Grundahl