The JWST Early Release Science Program for Direct Observations of Exoplanetary Systems: Best Practices for Data Collection in Cycle 2 and Beyond

TL;DR

This paper provides best practices for JWST data collection in direct imaging and spectroscopy of exoplanetary systems, aiming to guide observers for Cycle 2 and future observations based on early program analysis.

Contribution

It offers a comprehensive set of recommended data collection practices for JWST exoplanet observations, incorporating insights from early science results and instrument commissioning.

Findings

Established best practices for high-contrast imaging with JWST.

Guidelines tailored for Cycle 2 proposal preparation.

Insights from early JWST data analysis and instrument commissioning.

Abstract

We present a set of recommended best practices for JWST data collection for members of the community focussed on the direct imaging and spectroscopy of exoplanetary systems. These findings and recommendations are based on the early analysis of the JWST Early Release Science Program 1386, "High-Contrast Imaging of Exoplanets and Exoplanetary Systems with JWST." Our goal is for this information to be useful for observers in preparation of JWST proposals for Cycle 2 and beyond. In addition to compiling a set of best practices from our ERS program, in a few cases we also draw on the expertise gained within the instrument commissioning programs, as well as include a handful of data processing best practices. We anticipate that this document will be regularly updated and resubmitted to arXiv.org to ensure that we have distributed our knowledge of best-practices for data collection as widely and efficiently as possible.