brutus_cof module¶

brutus: a set of Python modules to process datacubes from integral field spectrographs.

This file contains functions related to the continuum fitting inside brutus, except for anything related to PPXF.

Created April 2016, F.P.A. Vogt - frederic.vogt@alumni.anu.edu.au

brutus_cof.lowess_fit(spec, lams, frac=0.05, it=5)[source]¶

Fit a spectrum using a Locally Weighted Scatterplot Smoothing approach.

Wraps around statsmodels.nonparametric.smoothers_lowess.lowess().

Args:

spec: 1-D numpy array: The input spectrum.
lams: 1-D numpy array: The corresponding wavelength array.
frac: float [default:0.05]: Between 0 and 1. The fraction of the data used when estimating each y-value. [From the statsmodel lowess function]
it: int [default:5]: The number of residual-based reweightings to perform. [From the statsmodel lowess function]

Returns:

out: 1-D array: The fitted array, with size equal to spec.

Notes:

This function fits a spectrum using a LOWESS (Locally Weighted Scatterplot Smoothing) technique, described in: Cleveland, W.S. (1979) Robust Locally Weighted Regression and Smoothing Scatterplots. Journal of the American Statistical Association 74 (368): 829-836.

This is robust to outliers (hot pixels, cosmics), and is also efficient to ignore emission lines. frac=0.05 and it=5 seem to work very fine for spectra of any SNR, both lousy with no continuum, and good ones in the center of galaxies - modulo the stellar absorption features which are of course “ignored” by the LOWESS routine.