XDQSO, written in IDL, calculates photometric quasar probabilities to mimick SDSS-III’s BOSS quasar target selection or photometric redshifts for quasars, whether in three redshift ranges (z < 2.2; 2.2 leq z leq 3.5; z > 3.5) or arbitrary redshift ranges.

NGMIX implements Gaussian mixture models for 2D images. Both the PSF profile and the galaxy are modeled using mixtures of Gaussians. Convolutions are thus performed analytically, resulting in fast model generation as compared to methods that perform the convolution in Fourier space. For the galaxy model, NGMIX supports exponential disks and de Vaucouleurs and Sérsic profiles; these are implemented approximately as a sum of Gaussians using the fits from Hogg & Lang (2013). Additionally, any number of Gaussians can be fit, either completely free or constrained to be cocentric and co-elliptical.

DES exposure checker renders science-grade images directly to a web browser and allows users to mark problematic features from a set of predefined classes, thus allowing image quality control for the Dark Energy Survey to be crowdsourced through its web application. Users can also generate custom labels to help identify previously unknown problem classes; generated reports are fed back to hardware and software experts to help mitigate and eliminate recognized issues. These problem reports allow rapid correction of artifacts that otherwise may be too subtle or infrequent to be recognized.