ScopeSim: A flexible general purpose astronomical instrument data simulation framework in Python

TL;DR

ScopeSim is an open-source Python framework for fast, flexible simulation of raw and reduced astronomical observation data across various telescopes and instruments, aiding in data pipeline development.

Contribution

It introduces a modular, efficient simulation environment capable of handling diverse telescope and instrument configurations with minimal redundant calculations.

Findings

Enables rapid simulation of observation data in seconds to minutes.

Supports a wide range of telescopes and instruments, including imaging and spectroscopy.

Open source with community contributions encouraged.

Abstract

ScopeSim is a flexible multipurpose instrument data simulation framework built in Python. It enables both raw and reduced observation data to be simulated for a wide range of telescopes and instruments quickly and efficiently on a personal computer. The software is currently being used to generate simulated raw input data for developing the data reduction pipelines for the MICADO and METIS instruments at the ELT. The ScopeSim environment consists of three main packages which are responsible for providing on-sky target templates (ScopeSim_templates), the data to build the optical models of various telescopes and instruments (instrument reference database), and the simulation engine (ScopeSim). This strict division of responsibilities allows ScopeSim to be used to simulate observation data for many different instrument and telescope configurations for both imaging and spectroscopic instruments. ScopeSim has been built to avoid redundant calculations wherever possible. As such it is able to deliver simulated observations on time scales of seconds to minutes. All the code and data is open source and hosted on Github. The community is also most welcome, and indeed encouraged to contribute to code ideas, target templates, and instrument packages.