SCUBA-2 ITC

Opacity conditions at JCMT are divided into 5 bands. You may select a band to use a representative value for that band or select “Other” to enter a specific 225 GHz opacity value.

Weather band information

SCUBA-2 offers two types of standard observing mode: “daisy” for compact sources (≲ 3 arc-minutes) and “pong” patterns of various sizes.

An additional observing mode is offered for polarimetry with POL-2.

SCUBA-2 observing modes

The ITC works in terms of the noise level of each pixel in your final map.

For point-source detections, the signal-to-noise ratio can be improved by applying a matched-beam filter. If you select this option, the ITC will apply suitable sampling factors for the use of this filter.

To work with a specific pixelization scheme you can enter custom pixel sizes. Note that pixels smaller than required for Nyquist sampling (6.5" at 850 µm and 4" at 450 µm) — as are often used for initial data reduction — give an over-sampled map and correspondingly higher noise level.

SCUBA-2 sensitivity