Strategies for Imaging Faint Extended Sources in the Near-Infrared

Quantitative information about variations in the background at J and K' are presented and used to develop guidelines for the acquisition and reduction of ground-based images of faint extended sources in the near-infrared, especially those which occupy a significant fraction of the field of view of a detector or which are located in areas crowded with foreground or background sources. Findings are based primarily upon data acquired over three photometric nights with the 3.6x3.6 arcmin CFHT-IR array on the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope atop Mauna Kea. Although some results are specific to CFHT, overall conclusions should be useful in guiding observing and reduction strategies of extended objects elsewhere.