WFC3/UVIS Geometric Distortion -- Time Evolution of Linear Terms w.r.t Gaia

TL;DR

This study examines the time evolution of the geometric distortion linear terms in WFC3/UVIS images using Gaia DR3 data, finding small temporal changes and filter-dependent offsets, with implications for high-precision astrometry.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of the linear distortion term evolution over 13 years and offers practical guidance for improving astrometric accuracy in WFC3/UVIS data.

Findings

Small scale and skew changes (<0.2 pixels) over 13 years.

Filter-dependent scale offsets up to 0.3 pixels.

Rotation offsets increasing after 2017 with large scatter.

Abstract

We align more than 7,400 WFC3/UVIS exposures to the Gaia DR3 catalog to examine the time evolution of the linear terms (shift, rotation, scale and skew) of the geometric distortion solution between 2009 and 2022. We find small linear temporal changes in the scale and skew terms (less than 0.2 pixels in 13 years) which are generally dominated by intrinsic scatter (up to $\pm$ 0.3 pixels). Concurrently, a larger filter-dependent offset in the scale term is observed, with a maximum difference of 0.3 pixels between F275W and F814W images at all epochs. A small rotation offset to Gaia of 0.003 $\pm$ 0.004 degrees is measured from 2009 to mid-2017, after which the offsets are as large as 0.01 degrees, with a large scatter. MAST pipeline processing includes an additional alignment step which corrects UVIS images for any residual linear terms with respect to Gaia DR3 when there are at least 10 matched sources. In addition to any pointing offsets, this step accounts for any evolution in the distortion linear terms described here. For observers requiring high-precision astrometry, we recommend using the tweakreg routine to realign images using a 4-parameter fit (x-shift, y-shift, rotation, and scale) or a 6-parameter fit (x-shift, y-shift, x-rotation, y-rotation, x-scale, and y-scale) depending on the number of matched sources. We provide links to DrizzlePac tutorials for improving both absolute and relative astrometry in WFC3 images.