The detection of cosmic ray hits (cosmics) in fiber-fed integral-field spectroscopy (IFS) data of single exposures is a challenging task because of the complex signal recorded by IFS instruments. Existing detection algorithms are commonly found to be unreliable in the case of IFS data, and the optimal parameter settings are usually unknown a priori for a given dataset. The Calar Alto legacy integral field area (CALIFA) survey generates hundreds of IFS datasets for which a reliable and robust detection algorithm for cosmics is required as an important part of the fully automatic CALIFA data reduction pipeline. PyCosmic combines the edge-detection algorithm of L.A.Cosmic with a point-spread function convolution scheme. PyCosmic is the only algorithm that achieves an acceptable detection performance for CALIFA data. Only for strongly undersampled IFS data does L.A.Cosmic exceed the performance of PyCosmic by a few percent. Thus, PyCosmic appears to be the most versatile cosmics detection algorithm for IFS data.

PampelMuse analyzes integral-field spectroscopic observations of crowded stellar fields and provides several subroutines to perform the individual steps of the data analysis. All analysis steps assume that the IFS data has been properly reduced and that all the instrumental artifacts have been removed. PampelMuse is designed to correctly handle IFS data regardless of which instrument was used to observe the data. In addition to the actual data, the software also requires an estimate of the variances for the analysis; optionally, it can use a bad pixel mask. The analysis relies on the presence of a reference catalogue, containing coordinates and magnitudes of the stars in and around the observed field.