ALICE Data Release: A Revaluation of HST-NICMOS Coronagraphic Images

Abstract

The Hubble Space Telescope NICMOS instrument was used from 1997 to 2008 to perform coronagraphic observations of about 400 targets. Most of them were part of surveys looking for substellar companions or resolved circumstellar disks to young nearby stars, making the NICMOS coronagraphic archive a valuable database for exoplanets and disks studies. As part of the Archival Legacy Investigations of Circumstellar Environments program, we have consistently reprocessed a large fraction of the NICMOS coronagrahic archive using advanced starlight subtraction methods. We present here the high-level science products of these re-analyzed data, which we delivered back to the community through the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes: doi:10.17909/T9W89V. We also present the second version of the HCI-FITS format (for High-Contrast Imaging FITS format), which we developed as a standard format for data exchange of imaging reduced science products. These re-analyzed products are openly available for population statistics studies, characterization of specific targets, or detected point-source identification.