JUDE: An Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope Pipeline

TL;DR

JUDE is a software pipeline that processes ultraviolet imaging data from the UVIT instrument on ASTROSAT, converting raw data into usable images and photon lists for scientific analysis.

Contribution

This paper introduces JUDE, a new software package for processing UVIT data, enhancing data analysis capabilities for ultraviolet astronomy.

Findings

JUDE successfully converts UVIT Level1 data into photon lists and images.

The software is compatible with IDL and GNU Data Language.

JUDE is publicly released under an Apache License.

Abstract

The Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (UVIT) was launched as part of the multi-wavelength Indian ASTROSAT mission on 28 September, 2015 into a low Earth orbit. A 6-month performance verification (PV) phase ended in March 2016, and the instrument is now in the general observing phase. UVIT operates in three channels: visible, near-ultraviolet (NUV) and far-ultraviolet (FUV), each with a choice of broad and narrow band filters, and has NUV and FUV gratings for low-resolution spectroscopy. We have written a software package (JUDE) to convert the Level1 data from UVIT into scientifically useful photon lists and images. The routines are written in the GNU Data Language (GDL) and are compatible with the IDL software package. We use these programs in our own scientific work, and will continue to update the programs as we gain better understanding of the UVIT instrument and its performance. We have released JUDE under an Apache License.