HST/STIS Target Acquisition Simulator

See documentation at https://stistarg.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

Utility to simulate HST/STIS target acquisitions with various "optional parameters" available in the Astronomer's Proposal Tool (APT) on a user-supplied FITS image.

Command Line Interface

For more information, type stistarg --help:

usage: stistarg [-h] [--ext EXT] [--point | --diffuse CHECKBOXSIZE] [--display]
                FILENAME

Simulate HST/STIS onboard target acquisition algorithm on user data.

positional argument:
  FILENAME              Input FITS file

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --ext EXT             Input FITS extension [default=0]
  --point               Point-source algorithm [default]
  --diffuse CHECKBOXSIZE
                        Diffuse-source algorithm. Specify checkboxsize [odd integer 3-101]
  --display, -d         Display results with matplotlib.pyplot

Written by Berry & Lockwood

Python API

import stistarg
stistarg.stistarg(filename, ext=0, source='point', checkboxsize=3, display=False)

Limitations

This release currently supports only the STIS detector format and scale. The capability to use non--STIS data will be added in a future release. Users wishing to use data from other sources must trim and rescale their input data accordingly. The STIS CCD plate scale is 0.050725 arcsec/pix.

Furthermore, stistarg assumes the use of STIS acquisition image data and trims out the last five columns from the input array before performing calculations (these are normally hot). To skip this behavior, users should pad their data accordingly.

Contact

For support, please contact the STScI help desk.