Data Reduction Frequently Asked Questions
In reducing data from my MXU mask with overlapping spectra, slit tracing fails for a number of slitlets. What do I do?
In such cases, it may help to run the fors_calib recipe with modified parameters. Changing the parameters cdegree and cmode from their default values (especially setting cmode to 2) should enable a better detection of the edges of not well separated spectra. Varying the cdegree and cmode parameters and comparing the extracted spectra with the ones expected for a "good" (i.e. non-overlapping) slit until a good match is found may be the best way to extract such spectra. However, ultimately, it may not always be possible to extract overlapping MXU spectra in an automated fashion (which is why this is strongly discouraged in MXU mask design).