SNLS calibrations

Abstract

The Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey (CFHTLS) is a massive imaging survey, conducted between 2003 and 2008, with the MegaCam instrument, mounted on the CFHT-3.6-m telescope. With a 1 degree wide focal plane, made of 36 2048 × 4612 sensors totalling 340 megapixels, MegaCam was at the time the largest imager on the sky. The Supernova Legacy Survey (SNLS) uses the cadenced observations of the 4 deg2 wide “DEEP” layer of the CFHTLS to search and follow-up Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) and study the acceleration of the cosmic expansion. The reduction and calibration of the CFHTLS/SNLS datasets has posed a series of challenges. In what follows, we give a brief account of the photometric calibration work that has been performed on the SNLS data over the last decade.