The condition flag is a single, semi-colon separated string of phrases,
in alphabetical order, describing various target categories
and conditions known about a particular Kepler target.
The table below provides information on each of the currently
flagged conditions. Note that the table lists the total number of flagged
targets on the detector, not the number of observations.
Searching on Condition Flags
The default form entry for the "Condition Flag" form element is
"All Targets", which implies all entries will be returned including those with
no listed condition (it is equivalent to ignoring the condition flag
in the search query.) Selecting a specific condition from the form pull-down
menu will return all entries containing that condition in the string,
including those with multiple conditions.
You can also use the "user-specified field" form element to try more advanced
condition flag searches. Note that if you use the user-specified
field be sure the Condition Flag box entry is set to "All Targets", otherwise
any other selected value will be included in the search.
To search for targets with condition "a" OR condition "b",
use a comma to separate the conditions. For example, to retrieve
targets which are false positives and targets which have Exoplanets,
enter "False*,Exo*". (Note this technique works with all MAST search forms.)
To search for targets with condition "a" AND condition "b",
use wildcard characters.
For example, to search for targets which are flagged as both
Eclipsing Binaries and
having Exoplanets, enter "*Eclipsing*Exoplanet*.
Although changes may occur in the future, the current list
of multiple conditions includes:
Eclipsing_binary; Exoplanet
Eclipsing_binary; False_Positive
Eclipsing_binary; Possible_artifact
Eclipsing_binary; Red_giant
Eclipsing_binary; Planetary_candidate
Exoplanet; Planetary_candidate
Condition Definitions
Condition Flag
# of Flagged Targets
Description
Eclipsing_binary
2166
Target is listed in the Kepler eclipsing binary catalog v2.0,
published on Oct 12, 2011 and derived from Kepler quarters 0-3.
See the
Eclipsing Binaries table
for more information.
False_positive
492
Targets showing planetary transit-like features but which further analysis
concluded was not attributable to a planet. The false positives
are also shown in a separate table
here.
Planetary_candidate
1790
A target exhibiting photometric features consistent with a transiting planet
(but not necessarily confirmed), and published in
Batalha et al., 2012.
See the
planetary candidates table
for more information.
Exoplanet
29
A target confirmed to have 1 or more orbiting exoplanets
based on information from the
Kepler Discoveries web page. Note: this list may (temporarily)
become out-of-date as new planets are discovered.
Red_giant
14,000
A possible red giant star for which data is now public.
See the
Red Giant Release page for more information.
Possible_artifact
36,000
A target believed to be flagged by the Kepler
project as a possible artifact.
These targets were identified by having
row and column positions indicating they are
on the detector, but the project did not provide
distance to edge values.
The distance values shown were added by MAST. They differ
from the project-defined distances in that they represent the
minimum distance from the detector edge to the target
not (more accurately) from the detector edge to the edge
of the photometric aperture.
Note no targets considered "off" the detector were
flagged as possible artifacts.
Null_kepmag
120,000
A target known to be on the detector but without a value for the Kepler magnitude.
These were originally included in the target search interface, were later removed (July, 2011)
by the Kepler project, then re-added by MAST with MAST-defined distance to edge values.
As for the "possible_artifact" case,
the MAST-defined distances describe the distance from the detector edge to the target,
not from the detector edge to the edge of the photometric aperture.
Most galaxies are included in this group.
Search & Retrieval