The Dark Energy Survey Image Processing Pipeline

TL;DR

The paper details the Dark Energy Survey's image processing pipeline, which handles large-scale optical imaging data for cosmic acceleration studies, including nightly processing, quality evaluation, and deep coadding for enhanced analysis.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive, evolving image processing pipeline tailored for DES's large-scale, multi-epoch optical imaging survey, serving as a reference for future surveys.

Findings

Efficient nightly processing and quality assessment of DES images.

Implementation of difference imaging for transient detection.

Deep coadding techniques to enhance imaging depth.

Abstract

The Dark Energy Survey (DES) is a five-year optical imaging campaign with the goal of understanding the origin of cosmic acceleration. DES performs a 5000 square degree survey of the southern sky in five optical bands (g,r,i,z,Y) to a depth of ~24th magnitude. Contemporaneously, DES performs a deep, time-domain survey in four optical bands (g,r,i,z) over 27 square degrees. DES exposures are processed nightly with an evolving data reduction pipeline and evaluated for image quality to determine if they need to be retaken. Difference imaging and transient source detection are also performed in the time domain component nightly. On a bi-annual basis, DES exposures are reprocessed with a refined pipeline and coadded to maximize imaging depth. Here we describe the DES image processing pipeline in support of DES science, as a reference for users of archival DES data, and as a guide for future astronomical surveys.