SOFIA/FORCAST Source Catalog of the Galactic Center and 25 and 37 μm

The Galactic Center contains some of the most extreme conditions for star formation in the Galaxy, similar to starburst galaxies but observable at spatial scales high enough to resolve individual stars. The Spitzer/MIPS survey of the Galactic Center mapped the hot dust in the region at 24 μm, significantly improving earlier MSX observations in this wavelength range. One of the major limitations of the Spitzer/MIPS survey, however, was saturation in regions believed to contain the most active star formation. One of the first SOFIA/FORCAST Legacy programs successfully observed most of these saturated regions at 25 and 37 μm (Hankins et al. 2020), with follow up observations largely completing observations of the inner 400 pc of the Galaxy.

We will present a source catalog for SOFIA/FORCAST observations of the Galactic Center at 25 and 37 μm. Due to the nature of the sources at these wavelengths, we classify the sources as point, compact, or extended. In order to create the most accurate catalog possible for this variety of sources, we perform photometry for all of the sources using three different methods: DAOPHOT which is best for point sources, aperture photometry to capture compact sources, and we use the Astropy code for segmentation mapping for extended sources which typically have irregular shapes. By providing both the source classification and multiple photometry methodologies, we provide users with the ability to use the best derived flux for their particular source of interest. The astrometry for the sources in the FORCAST data is not as accurate as that available in other catalogs. Therefore, as much as possible, we match our catalog sources to 8 μm objects in Spitzer/IRAC catalog to improve the accuracy of our coordinates, and facilitate multi-wavelength studies. We will also present a combined Spitzer/IRAC and FORCAST catalog, which will be used in future work to perform SED fitting of sources throughout these regions.