Hydra I : an extensible multi-source-finder comparison and cataloguing tool

M. M. Boyce, A. M. Hopkins, S. Riggi, L. Rudnick, M. Ramsay, C. L. Hale, J. Marvil, M. T. Whiting, P. Venkataraman, C. P. O'Dea, S. A. Baum, Y. A. Gordon, A. N. Vantyghem, M. Dionyssiou, H. Andernach, J. D. Collier, J. English, B.S. Koribalski, D. Leahy, M. J. MichałowskiS. Safi-Harb, M. Vaccari, E. L. Alexander, M. Cowley, A. D. Kapinska, A. S. G. Robotham, H. Tang

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

The latest generation of radio surveys are now producing sky survey images containing many millions of radio sources. In this context it is highly desirable to understand the performance of radio image source finder (SF) software and to identify an approach that optimises source detection capabilities. We have created Hydra to be an extensible multi-SF and cataloguing tool that can be used to compare and evaluate different SFs. Hydra, which currently includes the SFs Aegean, Caesar, ProFound, PyBDSF, and Selavy, provides for the addition of new SFs through containerisation and configuration files. The SF input RMS noise and island parameters are optimised to a 90% 'percentage real detections' threshold (calculated from the difference between detections in the real and inverted images), to enable comparison between SFs. Hydra provides completeness and reliability diagnostics through observed-deep and generated-shallow images, as well as other statistics. In addition, it has a visual inspection tool for comparing residual images through various selection filters, such as S/N bins in completeness or reliability. The tool allows the user to easily compare and evaluate different SFs in order to choose their desired SF, or a combination thereof. This paper is part one of a two part series. In this paper we introduce the Hydra software suite and validate its metrics using simulated data. The companion paper demonstrates the utility of Hydra by comparing the performance of SFs using both simulated and real images.
Original languageEnglish
Article numbere028
Number of pages24
JournalPublications of the Astronomical Society of Australia
Volume40
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 8 Jun 2023

Open Access - Access Right Statement

© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Astronomical Society of Australia. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.

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