STIPS: The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Imaging Product Simulator

TL;DR

STIPS is an open-source Python package that simulates realistic astronomical images for the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, including various noise sources and background effects, aiding in observation planning and data analysis.

Contribution

STIPS introduces a comprehensive, customizable simulation tool for Roman Space Telescope images, integrating multiple noise and background models in an accessible Python package.

Findings

Simulates realistic Roman Telescope images with noise and background effects.

Supports multiple detectors and sources, including point and extended objects.

Open source and adaptable for various research needs.

Abstract

The Space Telescope Imaging Product Simulator (STIPS) is a Python-based package that can be used to simulate scenes from the upcoming \textit{Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope} (\nancy). STIPS is able to generate post-pipeline astronomical images of any number of sensor chip assembly (SCA) detectors, up to the entire 18-SCA Wide-Field Instrument array on \nancy. STIPS can inject either point spread functions generated with {\tt WebbPSF}, or extended sources in any of the \nancy filters. The output images can include flat field, dark current, and cosmic ray residuals. Additionally, STIPS includes an estimate of Poisson and readout noise, as well as an estimate of the zodiacal background and internal background from the telescope. However, STIPS does not include instrument saturation, non-linearity, or distortion effects. STIPS is provided as an open source repository on GitHub.