Strategies for Accurate Effective Point Spread Function (ePSF) Modelling on Undersampled Images

TL;DR

This paper improves effective point spread function (ePSF) modelling for undersampled images by proposing simple modifications that enhance accuracy, demonstrated through synthetic and real astronomical data, leading to better photometry and astrometry.

Contribution

It introduces effective modifications to existing ePSF modelling routines, significantly enhancing accuracy for undersampled imaging data.

Findings

Modified ePSF routines reduce pixel-phase errors

Oversampling and dithering improve model accuracy

Refined methods outperform standard approaches

Abstract

Accurate modelling of the effective point spread function (ePSF) is essential for high-precision photometry and astrometry, particularly in undersampled imaging regimes. In this work, we build on a well-established ePSF modelling framework and its commonly used open-source Python implementation and demonstrate that several simple but effective modifications to existing ePSF modelling routines can significantly improve model accuracy. We use synthetic ePSFs to generate simulated datasets of stellar images, allowing us to evaluate the accuracy of ePSF models and determine the scale of the pixel-phase errors in resulting flux and position measurements. We systematically investigate how specific modelling choices affect ePSF accuracy, and evaluate the influence of oversampling, interpolation, gridpoint estimation, smoothing, star-sample distribution, and dithering on photometric precision. We apply our refined ePSF modelling routine to images from the Global Jet Watch observatories, demonstrating its improved ability to recover an accurate ePSF for real astronomical images. Our findings highlight the importance of tailoring the modelling approach to the specific characteristics of the instrument and detector, as well as to the nature of the available imaging data used to construct the ePSF model. These results provide practical guidance for optimising ePSF construction, thereby improving the reliability of photometric and astrometric measurements.