astropy / astropy/specutils

Continuum fitting using individual points instead of spectral regions

Open
#813 2 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
enhancement fitting
Dominant language
Python
Stars
204
Forks
134
Avg merge
12h 55m
Merged PRs (30d)
1

Description

Some of our JWST mid-IR spectra with low resolution have dense forests of emission lines (H recombination lines). The automated continuum fit tends to interpret as noise what is actually all emission lines, and there is often only a single point between the lines. To get a good continuum fit we really need to pass individual points rather than regions. Would be good if that were possible but I couldn't see it in specutils.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

Start by locating specutils' automated continuum-fitting entry point and its existing tests, then trace how spectral regions are currently represented and passed into the fit. Done means callers can provide individual spectral points, with test coverage showing that dense emission-line spectra with few points between lines receive a usable continuum fit.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
python
Domain
data
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
45/100

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.