SImMER: A Pipeline for Reducing and Analyzing Images of Stars

TL;DR

SImMER is an open-source, modular Python pipeline designed for reducing and analyzing astronomical images of point sources, supporting multiple instruments and providing tools for image registration, contrast curve calculation, and publication-ready outputs.

Contribution

This work introduces SImMER, the first publicly available, flexible reduction pipeline for astronomical point-source images that supports multiple instruments and extends easily.

Findings

Supports dark-subtraction, flat-fielding, sky-subtraction, and image registration.

Capable of reducing saturated and binary star images.

Generates contrast curves and publication-quality plots.

Abstract

We present the first public version of SImMER, an open-source Python reduction pipeline for astronomical images of point sources. Current capabilities include dark-subtraction, flat-fielding, sky-subtraction, image registration, FWHM measurement, contrast curve calculation, and table and plot generation. SImMER supports observations taken with the ShARCS camera on the Shane 3-m telescope and the PHARO camera on the Hale 5.1-m telescope. The modular nature of SImMER allows users to extend the pipeline to accommodate additional instruments with relative ease. One of the core functions of the pipeline is its image registration module, which is flexible enough to reduce saturated images and images of similar-brightness, resolved stellar binaries. Furthermore, SImMER can compute contrast curves for reduced images and produce publication-ready plots. The code is developed online at \url{https://github.com/arjunsavel/SImMER} and is both pip- and conda-installable. We develop tutorials and documentation alongside the code and host them online. With SImMER, we aim to provide a community resource for accurate and reliable data reduction and analysis.