2022-08-18

continuum normalization of spectra

How do you continuum-normalize a spectrum in a low-resolution spectrograph? You can't really, unless you have exceedingly good models for stars (which you could use to fit the normalization); but of course if you had extremely good models for stars you probably wouldn't have to normalize!

I had an interesting conversation about this with Alex Dimoff (MPIA). He is continuum-normalizing spectra in a high-resolution echelle spectrograph. He has a good measurement of the “blaze function” so I suggested that he just add some polynomial or sine-and-cosine adjustments to that in each order. My main advice about continuum normalization is to avoid things that are very sensitive to signal-to-noise: As you degrade the signal-to-noise, your continuum estimate should not systematically deviate low. Most methods in play right now have this problem, and bad. Think: Fit to pixels that are “consisten” with being continuum pixels. That's going to depend very strongly on signal-to-noise.

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