Comparison between K-band and I-band catalogues on  F1400

--1 Adding an artificial star image FWHM = 0".8 arcsecs to the real image
         (K or I band) the following completeness values are obtained: 


 

From these two plots, 90% completeness values are I_AB = 24.0 and K_Vega = 21.0 .
It should be remembered though that at K_Vega > 20.75 contamination rate becomes
higher than 10%, suggesting that the scientific analysis for the K-band data in this
field should be limited to K_Vega < 20.75 .

--2  Number of objects in SExtractor catalogues (in overlapping area, 45.5 sq arcmins,
         limits defind here):

               I-band    -->  1702 in total,   816  down to I_AB < 24.0 .
               K-band  -->   3515 in total,   884  down to K_Vega < 21.0 .

      Pairing according to Ra and Dec between the two catalogues results in 1175 objects
      in common, 527 unpaired I-band objects, 2340 unpaired K-band objects.

--3  Magnitude distribution of paired(blue)/unpaired(red)/total(grey) objects in the
        I-band and K-band catalogues :

                        I-band                             K-band

        One can see that down to the respective 90% completeness limit the percentage
        of paired objects is slightly higher for I-band than for K-band:

               I-band   -->  @ I_AB < 24.0 :    761  are paired (93%) and  55 are unpaired (7%)
               K-band  -->  @ K_Vega < 21.0:  751 are paired (85%) and  133 are unpaired (15%)

        A visual inspection of the 133 bright (K_Vega < 21.0), unpaired, K-band objects
        shows that most of these are bona-fide objects with no visible I-band counterparts.
        (click here for an image gallery of interesting cases).  Down to K_Vega < 20.75 (77 objs)
        the percentage of reliable K-band unpaired detections is as high as 90%. A  few reliable
        instances are found also in the remaining tail between 20.75 < K_Vega < 21.0 , but
        there the percentage of reliable (to my eye ...) K-band unpaired detections is of the
        order of 50%.

--4  Recipe for adding the K-band info into the database.

          We have three different cases:

           a --  1175 paired objects: for them the K-band info should simply be added in
                    the database.  Here is the file that contains the IDs of these objects in
                     the database and their full K-band Sextractor  information (usual format).
                    The K-band photometric info contained in this file should go into the
                    database.

           b --  527 unpaired I-band objects: for them in the database we should
                    put  Kmag=99.00, meaning no K-band detection. Here is the file that
                    contains the IDs of these objects in the database.

           c --  2340 unpaired K-band objects: I would keep * only * those with K_Vega < 21.0.
                   These 133 objects should be added to the database. Here is the file that contains
                    their full  K-band Sextractor  information. In order to attribute to them a sensible
                    I band magnitude, I did run SExtractor on the I-band image using the K-band                  
                    image as a reference one, and here is the file with the full I-band Sextractor
                    information for these  objects.

 
 

Page written:  May 10 2004
             
July 30 2004  minor changes: the limits in RA have been slightly corrected,
                                                resulting in 8 objs less in the file of point a, 4 objects less in the
                                                file of point b, 5 objects less in the file of point c. Links have been
                                                updated accordingly.