We need to provide a bad pixel mask as recent as possible to the observers.
This mask is independent of the readout mode, filter or optic configuration
and only depends on the detector, i.e. hot and dead pixels. This
can be done by taking a very high SNR for each pixel. The bad pixel
mask will be created for those pixels that deviate more than 3*sigma from
the local mean.
A bad pixel mask should be created at least once after the instrument is warmed up, due to some pixels can die during this procedure. The bad pixel masks will be included in our archive to be accessed by the observers.
This is the aspect of the last bad pixel mask obtained in Jul 01, and here you can download.
You can get the latest bad pixel mask here
made on 08/02/01