CIERA REU Research

Introduction

During my 2026 REU research project at CIERA in Northwestern, I worked with data from the TolTEC camera to improve the relative and absolute alignment process for observations, choose the best reduction parameters for a finalized image of the nearby star forming region Rho Oph A, and validate the resulting image. I was also able to produce preliminary Beta values for a few protostars.

Results

Using Enhanced Cross-Correlation Maximization, we created and outlined a modified TolTEC image alignment method in order to fix previously discovered blurring issues. Image positioning was corrected by finding the centroid of the Young Stellar Object VLA 1623-243, and comparing the FITS file WCS position of the centroid to the protostar’s position as queried from Simbad. We also generated an image of Rho Oph A, focusing on finding the number of removed eigenmodes via PCA cleaning that balanced atmospheric removal with flux retention. We found that our alignment method resulted in a less blurry and more sharp final image. We also found that there were minimal differences between our resolution-smoothed TolTEC image and a previous JCMT image of Rho Oph A. Finally, using a simple method of aperture photometry to find fluxes, we calculated Beta values for a few protostars off by a factor of 2 from known values. This difference occured due to larger TolTEC fluxes relative to the JCMT fluxes, and is small enough to be connected to the higher extended dust emission values seen in the TolTEC image, which is a positive sign towards the validity of the TolTEC image of Rho Oph A.

Presentations & Publication

I made and presented the following poster at the Adler Planetarium and CIERA:

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