A Technique for Extracting Highly Precise Photometry for the Two-Wheeled Kepler Mission

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new data processing technique that significantly improves the photometric precision of the Kepler spacecraft after reaction wheel failures, nearing the original mission's accuracy levels.

Contribution

The authors develop a method to extract high-precision photometry from two-wheeled Kepler data by correcting for pixel response and pointing variations, restoring much of the original precision.

Findings

Photometric precision improved by factors of 2-5 over raw K2 data.

Precision varies across the field, worse near edges.

Median precision reaches within 35% of original Kepler levels for certain stars.

Abstract

The original Kepler mission achieved high photometric precision thanks to ultra-stable pointing enabled by use of four reaction wheels. The loss of two of these reaction wheels reduced the telescope's ability to point precisely for extended periods of time, and as a result, the photometric precision has suffered. We present a technique for generating photometric light curves from pixel-level data obtained with the two-wheeled extended Kepler mission, K2. Our photometric technique accounts for the non-uniform pixel response function of the Kepler detectors by correlating flux measurements with the spacecraft's pointing and removing the dependence. When we apply our technique to the ensemble of stars observed during the Kepler Two-Wheel Concept Engineering Test, we find improvements over raw K2 photometry by factors of 2-5, with noise properties qualitatively similar to Kepler targets at the same magnitudes. We find evidence that the improvement in photometric precision depends on each target's position in the Kepler field of view, with worst precision near the edges of the field. Overall, this technique restores the median attainable photometric precision to within a factor of two of the original Kepler photometric precision for targets ranging from 10$^{th}$ to 15$^{th}$ magnitude in the Kepler bandpass, peaking with a median precision within 35% that of Kepler for stars between 12$^{th}$ and 13$^{th}$ magnitude in the Kepler bandpass.