Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe DR2

The data made available through this page has been updated. The most recent version of this data may be accessed through https://lambda.gsfc.nasa.gov/product/wmap/current/

Intensity and Polarization Exclusion Masks

Coordinate System:
Galactic
Resolution:
HEALPix, nested, res 9 (Nside=512), res 10 (Nside=1024), res 4 (Nside=16)
Download Links:
masks_get.html

A number of WMAP data analysis applications use pixel masks which exclude foreground-contaminated portions of the sky from the analysis. Diffuse emission is masked using a combination of cuts in the K band map and a model of thermal dust emission. Point sources are masked based on a combination of external catalog data and WMAP-detected sources. A source exclusion radius of 0.6 degree is used for the intensity masks and 1.0 degrees for the polarization masks.

Mask sky cut
%		 Description
Kp2 Intensity 15.3 The standard intensity mask.
Kp0 Intensity 23.5 A more aggressive intensity mask.
Processing 5.7 The mask used in map-making.
Source Only 2.4 The point source intensity mask.
Polarization 26.5 The standard polarization mask (P06).
P04 Polarization 31.1 A more aggressive polarization mask.
P02 Polarization 44.6 A more aggressive polarization mask.
Polarization Sources 0.2 The point source polarization mask.

Mask values for each map pixel are provided in the N_obs field of the data file (the 'Temperature' field is set to zero for all pixels). A mask value of zero means the pixel is rejected; a value of one means the pixel is accepted.

Additional Information

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Goddard Space Flight Center, National Aeronautics and Space Administration
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LAMBDA Director: Dr. Thomas M. Essinger-Hileman
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