AutoSourceID-FeatureExtractor
Astronomy and Astrophysics, vol. 680, pp. A108
Abstract
Aims. In astronomy, machine learning has been successful in various tasks such as source localisation, classification, anomaly detection, and segmentation. However, feature regression remains an area with room for improvement. We aim to design a network that can accurately estimate sources’ features and their uncertainties from single-band image cutouts, given the approximated locations of the sources provided by the previously developed code AutoSourceID-Light (ASID-L) or other external catalogues. This work serves as a proof of concept, showing the potential of machine learning in estimating astronomical features when trained on meticulously crafted synthetic images and subsequently applied to real astronomical data. Methods. The algorithm presented here, AutoSourceID-FeatureExtractor (ASID-FE), uses single-band cutouts of 32x32 pixels around the localised sources to estimate flux, sub-pixel centre coordinates, and their uncertainties. ASID-FE employs a two-step mean variance estimation (TS-MVE) approach to first estimate the features and then their uncertainties without the need for additional information, for example the point spread function (PSF). For this proof of concept, we generated a synthetic dataset comprising only point sources directly derived from real images, ensuring a controlled yet authentic testing environment. Results. We show that ASID-FE, trained on synthetic images derived from the MeerLICHT telescope, can predict more accurate features with respect to similar codes such as SourceExtractor and that the two-step method can estimate well-calibrated uncertainties that are better behaved compared to similar methods that use deep ensembles of simple MVE networks. Finally, we evaluate the model on real images from the MeerLICHT telescope and theZwickyTransient Facility (ZTF) to test its transfer learning abilities.
Authors 11
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Affiliation as printed
Department of Astrophysics/IMAPP , Radboud University , PO Box 9010 , 6500 GL Nijmegen , The Netherlands
Department of Mathematics/IMAPP , Radboud University , PO Box 9010 , 6500 GL Nijmegen , The Netherlands
Department of Astrophysics/IMAPP, Radboud University, PO Box 9010, 6500 GL Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Department of Mathematics/IMAPP, Radboud University, PO Box 9010, 6500 GL Nijmegen, The Netherlands
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Affiliation as printed
Department of Astrophysics/IMAPP , Radboud University , PO Box 9010 , 6500 GL Nijmegen , The Netherlands
Department of Astrophysics/IMAPP, Radboud University, PO Box 9010, 6500 GL Nijmegen, The Netherlands
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Affiliation as printed
Center for Astrophysics and Cosmology , University of Nova Gorica , Vipavska 13 , SI-5000 Nova Gorica , Slovenia
Center for Astrophysics and Cosmology, University of Nova Gorica, Vipavska 13, SI-5000 Nova Gorica, Slovenia
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Radboud University Nijmegen · National Institute for Subatomic Physics
Affiliation as printed
High Energy Physics/IMAPP , Radboud University , PO Box 9010 , 6500 GL Nijmegen , The Netherlands
Nikhef , Science Park 105 , 1098 XG Amsterdam , the Netherlands
High Energy Physics/IMAPP, Radboud University, PO Box 9010, 6500 GL Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Nikhef, Science Park 105, 1098 XG Amsterdam, the Netherlands
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Affiliation as printed
Department of Astrophysics/IMAPP , Radboud University , PO Box 9010 , 6500 GL Nijmegen , The Netherlands
Department of Astrophysics/IMAPP, Radboud University, PO Box 9010, 6500 GL Nijmegen, The Netherlands
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University of Nova Gorica · Institute for Fundamental Physics of the Universe
Affiliation as printed
Center for Astrophysics and Cosmology , University of Nova Gorica , Vipavska 13 , SI-5000 Nova Gorica , Slovenia
Institute for Fundamental Physics of the Universe , Via Beirut 2 , 34151 Trieste , Italy
Center for Astrophysics and Cosmology, University of Nova Gorica, Vipavska 13, SI-5000 Nova Gorica, Slovenia
Institute for Fundamental Physics of the Universe, Via Beirut 2, 34151 Trieste, Italy
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University of Trieste · Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Trieste
Affiliation as printed
Dipartimento di Fisica , Universitá di Trieste , I-34127 Trieste , Italy
Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare , Sezione di Trieste , I-34127 Trieste , Italy
Dipartimento di Fisica, Universitá di Trieste, I-34127 Trieste, Italy
Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Trieste, I-34127 Trieste, Italy
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Affiliation as printed
Center for Astrophysics and Cosmology , University of Nova Gorica , Vipavska 13 , SI-5000 Nova Gorica , Slovenia
Center for Astrophysics and Cosmology, University of Nova Gorica, Vipavska 13, SI-5000 Nova Gorica, Slovenia
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Radboud University Nijmegen · University of Cape Town · Inter-university Institute for Data Intensive Astronomy · South African Astronomical Observatory
Affiliation as printed
Department of Astronomy and Inter-University Institute for Data Intensive Astronomy, University of Cape Town, Private Bag X3, Rondebosch, 7701, South Africa
Department of Astrophysics/IMAPP, Radboud University, PO Box 9010, 6500 GL Nijmegen, The Netherlands
South African Astronomical Observatory, P.O. Box 9, Observatory, 7935, South Africa
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Affiliation as printed
Department of Mathematics/IMAPP , Radboud University , PO Box 9010 , 6500 GL Nijmegen , The Netherlands
Department of Mathematics/IMAPP, Radboud University, PO Box 9010, 6500 GL Nijmegen, The Netherlands
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Radboud University Nijmegen · Space Research Organisation Netherlands · KU Leuven
Affiliation as printed
Department of Astrophysics/IMAPP, Radboud University, PO Box 9010, 6500 GL Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Institute of Astronomy, KU Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200D, B-3001 Leuven, Belgium
SRON, Netherlands Institute for Space Research, Sorbonnelaan 2, NL-3584 CA Utrecht, The Netherlands
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