SAGE-SMC: MIPS 24-Micron Source Catalogs for the Small Magellanic Cloud

A catalog of point-like sources at 24 microns from the Spitzer Space Telescope's SAGE-SMC legacy program. The data includes observations from three epochs (Epochs 0, 1, and 2) separated by months to remove imaging artifacts and constrain source variability. The project was led by Karl Gordon (STScI) and data reduction followed the methodology of the S3MC pathfinder survey.

Use Cases

• Identifying and studying variable evolved stars based on multi-epoch infrared photometry.
• Analyzing young stellar objects (YSOs) using their infrared signatures and variability constraints.
• Removing striping and column/row artifacts in MIPS and IRAC data through multi-epoch observations.
• Investigating the point-like source population in the Small Magellanic Cloud at 24 microns.

Strengths

• Sources were filtered with strict criteria, including a correlation value >0.89 for point-like shape and signal-to-noise >5.
• Observations from two epochs separated by 3 (IRAC) and 9 (MIPS) months to remove systematic artifacts.
• The final Epoch 1 catalog is estimated to have less than 1% unreliable sources.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• The 'Full List' contains all extracted sources, including spurious ones, requiring user caution.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Infrared observations from the Spitzer Space Telescope's SAGE-SMC legacy program, reduced using the same software as the S3MC pathfinder survey.

Time Range

Observations from three epochs (Epoch 0, 1, and 2), with Epochs 1 and 2 separated by 3 and 9 months.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 19:32:16.421860; freshness should be verified.

Geography

The Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), a tidally-disrupted, low-metallicity dwarf galaxy.