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Paper: A NewMethod for Extracting Light Echo Fluxes
Volume: 363, The Nature of V838 Mon and its Light Echo
Page: 184
Authors: Newman, A.B.; Rest, A.
Abstract: Due to their faint surface brightnesses, difference imaging is necessary to separate most light echoes from the sky background. Difference images, however, provide only the relative fluxes between two epochs. Obtaining absolute fluxes for individual epochs has traditionally relied on a single template image free of light echoes. Generally this must be constructed, since such an observation is usually unavailable. Here we present an application of the NN2 method of Barris et al. (2005) to extract the relative fluxes of light echoes across a range of epochs from a series of difference images. This method requires no privileged image and makes maximal use of the observational data. Statistical methods to estimate the zero-flux level and thus the absolute flux are also presented. The efficacy of the technique is demonstrated by an application to the light echoes around SN 1987A.
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