K2SUPERSTAMP: The release of calibrated mosaics for the {\em Kepler/K2} Mission

TL;DR

This paper announces the release of calibrated, contiguous FITS mosaics of key star clusters observed by the Kepler/K2 mission, facilitating easier scientific analysis and object location for researchers.

Contribution

It provides the first stitched, astrometrically calibrated mosaics of K2 superstamp observations, improving data accessibility for the community.

Findings

Mosaics cover four major star clusters and a nebula.

Images are spatially contiguous and accurately calibrated.

Data is now more accessible for lightcurve and planet search pipelines.

Abstract

We describe the release of a new High Level Science Product (HLSP) available at the MAST archive. The HLSP, called K2Superstamp, consists of a series of FITS images for four open star clusters observed by the K2 Mission using so-called "superstamp" pixel masks: M35, the $\sim$150 Myr old open cluster observed during K2 Campaign 0, M67, the solar-age, solar-metallicity benchmark cluster observed during Campaign 5, Ruprecht 147, the $\sim$3 Gyr-old open cluster observed during Campaign 7, and the Lagoon Nebula (M8/NGC 6530), the high-mass star-forming region observed during Campaign 9. While the data for these regions have long been served on MAST, until now they were only available as a disconnected set of smaller Target Pixel Files (TPFs) because the spacecraft stored these observations in small chunks. As a result, these regions have hitherto been ignored by many lightcurve and planet search pipelines. With this new release, we have stitched these TPFs together into spatially contiguous FITS images (one per cadence) to make their scientific analysis easier. In addition, each image has been fit with an accurate WCS solution so that you may locate any object of interest via its right ascension and declination. We describe here the process of stitching and astrometric calibration.