skymaker

Aprogram that simulates astronomical images.

Version : 2.3.4
Author(s) : Emmanuel Bertin (bertin@iap.fr)
License : GPL
Website : http://terapix.iap.fr/sextractor/

Installs from Open Source Astronomy for Linux cd 3
Disk space required for installation is 311.00 Kb

After the package is installed it can be accessed using the command


		/opt/astro/bin/startskymaker

     

A shortcut will be installed in the KDE/GNOME desktop menu system,
as an entry in the Astronomy submenu

Summary

The general SYNTAX is similar to that of SExtractor:

sky [] [-c ] [- ] ...

- A list file is an ASCII file containing a list of objects that can be added to the simulated image. An example is provided in the sample.list file. Note that only stars (code = 100) and galaxies (code = 200) are recognized in this version. - Keyword parameters given in the command line override those from the configuration file. - If the list-file is given as unique argument, Skymaker searches for a default configuration file called ``default.sky''. - SkyMaker creates 2 files in output: the image itself, and a catalog containing the objects it contains (with name toto.list if IMAGE_NAME was set to toto.fits). - Currently, the following TYPEs can be used with the IMAGE_TYPE keyword: PUPIL_REAL, PUPIL_IMAGINARY, PUPIL_MODULUS, PUPIL_PHASE, PUPIL_MTF, PSF_MTF, PSF_FULLRES, PSF_FINALRES, SKY_NONOISE and SKY. The two latter keywords should be used for creating actual instrument images. - A FITS header (any FITS image, or even an ASCII dump) can be provided through the IMAGE_HEADER keyword: simply replace "INTERNAL" by the file name. SkyMaker2 will then make a copy of this header for the simulated image, enabling the latter to be easily processed through your usual reduction tools. - Thanks to Pascal Fouque, parameters describing common optical aberrations (including defocus, spheric, astigmatism and coma) have been included in the description of the pupil phase-plane. Their normalisation follow the ESO convention (equivalent angular diameter of a circle, in the focal plane, which encloses 80% of the PSF flux; this is generally slightly more than the FWHM). However the user is invited to check this normalisation, and report any unexpected result. - Please look at the denisI.sky, denisJ.sky and denisK.sky configuration examples for more information. - If a SEED_* parameter is set to 0, the corresponding random generator is initialized to a ``random'' (function of time) value. - Beware of large AUREOLE_RADIUS values: during the calculation of the image, a temporary border of pixels in thickness is added all around the image, and can significantly affect the computation time.