Wavelength Calibration Accuracy Across the STIS CCD: Pipeline Update and User Guidance

Abstract

We investigate the wavelength calibration accuracy of STIS CCD spectra as a function of detector position, focusing on the E1/E2 pseudo-apertures. Comparison between measured lamp line centroids and laboratory wavelengths shows that, while the standard calstis solution is stable at the detector center, significant offsets are present toward the CCD edges and increase with time. We used a test version of calstis in which the wavelength calibration step employs a row-selected cross-correlation, leading to improved wavelength calibration accuracy for edge extractions. Motivated by these results, we implemented an update to calstis4 that applies a row-selected wavecal procedure to observations taken with the E1/E2 pseudo-apertures, while preserving the standard procedure for nominal extractions. The updated pipeline was then used to reprocess the entire STIS archive in MAST. Validation tests confirm improved agreement between nominal and E1/E2 spectra without significant side effects for more than 97% of the datasets in the MAST archive. The main exceptions are the majority of G230MB and a few G230LB and G430M datasets, where the lower signal-to-noise at the CCD edge makes the lamp lines harder to detect and cosmic-ray residuals can dominate the cross-correlation, leading to incorrect wavelength shifts. A Jupyter Notebook is also provided to enable similar corrections in case the cross-correlation fails, for extractions at positions other than E1/E2, or for multiple extractions along the slit. Finally, we discuss the potential impact of the wavelength calibration accuracy on science results.