Spextool: A Spectral Extraction Package for SpeX, a 0.8–5.5 Micron Cross‐Dispersed Spectrograph

ABSTRACT. We describe an IDL-based package for the reduction of spectral data obtained with SpeX, a medium-resolution, 0.8–5.5 mm cross-dispersed spectrograph and imager for the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility. The package, called Spextool, carries out all the procedures necessary to produce fully reduced spectra including preparation of calibration frames, processing and extraction of spectra from science frames, wavelength calibration of spectra, and flux calibration of spectra. The package incorporates an “optimal extraction ” algorithm for pointsource data and also generates realistic error arrays associated with the extracted spectra. Because it is fairly quick and easy to use, requiring minimal user…