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2MASS Calibration Point Source Working Database

Metadata Updated: April 10, 2026

Photometric calibration for 2MASS was performed using observations of calibration fields made at regular intervals during each night of survey operations. Measurements of standard stars in the fields were used to derive the photometric zero point offsets as a function of time during each night. Atmospheric extinction coefficients were derived from 2MASS observations made over long periods.\n\n2MASS calibration fields, or tiles, are 1° long in declination and approximately 8.5' wide in right ascension. There are 35 regular survey calibration fields distributed at approximately two hour intervals in right ascension near declinations of approximately -30°, 0° and +30°. An additional five calibration fields were defined in and around the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds to support the deep observation (6x) campaign towards the end of survey operations.\n\nOver the course of the survey, the regular calibration fields were scanned between 562 and 3692 times in nominally photometric conditions. Equatorial fields were observed from both observatories, so were observed more frequently than those near ±30° which were observed with only one telescope. The special Magellanic Cloud calibration fields were observed 108 to 468 times between November 2000 and February 2001.\n\nCalibration scan Atlas Images, and Point and Extended Source Working Databases (Cal-PSWDB and Cal-XSWDB), analogous to those from the main survey, were produced from the calibration scan pipeline data reduction. The calibration Image Atlas and WDBs are the fundamental processing archives of the data from 73,230 calibration scans taken in photometric conditions during 2MASS survey operations. The Cal-WDBs contain positions, magnitudes and characteristics of 191,464,020 and 403,811 point and extended "source" extractions, respectively. The calibration Image Atlas contains 878,769 FITS images in the three survey bandpasses redundantly covering ~5 deg2 of sky. Unlike the main survey and 6x observations, "Catalogs" have not been derived from the Calibration WDBs.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: See this page for license information.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date April 10, 2026

Metadata Source

Harvested from NASA Data.json

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date April 10, 2026
Publisher NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive
Maintainer
Identifier ivo://irsa.ipac/2mass/catalog/calpswdb
Data Last Modified 2026-04-06
Category Astrophysics
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 026:00
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id bf4a8dd8-55d8-40cc-882b-51c4083675e3
Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
Homepage URL ivo://irsa.ipac/2mass/catalog/calpswdb
License https://www.usa.gov/government-works
Program Code 026:000
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash f9b4c35a52cccb998976cb4df9f0000c7b0583cc60495c6036525a1dbb4f719f
Source Schema Version 1.1

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