2DPHOT: A Multi-purpose Environment for the Two-dimensional Analysis of Wide-field Images

TL;DR

2DPHOT is a versatile, automated software environment designed for comprehensive analysis of wide-field astronomical images, enabling source detection, photometry, star-galaxy separation, and catalog completeness estimation.

Contribution

It introduces a new, integrated analysis environment with algorithms tailored for deep wide-field image processing, supporting multiple computing architectures.

Findings

Effective star-galaxy separation at faint flux levels

Reliable estimates of catalog completeness

Automated photometry and source analysis

Abstract

We describe 2DPHOT, a general purpose analysis environment for source detection and analysis in deep wide-field images. 2DPHOT is an automated tool to obtain both integrated and surface photometry of galaxies in an image, to perform reliable star-galaxy separation with accurate estimates of contamination at faint flux levels, and to estimate completeness of the image catalog. We describe the analysis strategy on which 2DPHOT is based, and provide a detailed description of the different algorithms implemented in the package. This new environment is intended as a dedicated tool to process the wealth of data from wide-field imaging surveys. To this end, the package is complemented by 2DGUI, an environment that allows multiple processing of data using a range of computing architectures.