Getting Started

This chapter provides information on how to start using ESBO-ETC.

Installation

A Python 3 installation is required to run ESBO-ETC. You can get the latest python version here.

In order to get ESBO-ETC, download the latest release from the IRS git server or clone the latest development version from the IRS git server using

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git clone https://egit.irs.uni-stuttgart.de/esbo_ds/ESBO-ETC.git

Python Virtual Environment

It is advisable to create a python virtual environment for ESBO-ETC where all necessary packages will be installed. To create a virtual environment and install all packages, got to the project’s root directory an run

Linux / MacOS

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python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
python venv/bin/pip install -r requirements.txt

Windows

It might be possible that you need to install Microsoft Build Tools for C++ in order to compile astropy.

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conda create -n venv
conda activate venv
conda install -c anaconda pip
pip install -r requirements.txt

Global Python installation

Instead of a virtual environment, the global python installation can be used to run ESBO-ETC. Therefore, the necessary packages need to be installed by running the following command from the project’s root directory.

Linux / MacOS

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pip install -r requirements.txt

Windows

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conda install -c anaconda pip
pip install -r requirements.txt

Running ESBO-ETC

ESBO-ETC can be run using in multiple ways as explained in the following subsections. However all methods provide the same options which can be shown using the parameter -h or --help.

The following options are available:

-h, --help

Show the help.

-c, --config

Specify the path to the configuration file. Default is esbo-etc_defaults.xml.

-l, --logging

Specify the log level for the application. Possible levels are DEBUG, INFO, WARNING, ERROR.

-v, --version

Print version information.

-m, --manual

Print the manual.

Shell-Script

The recommended way to run ESBO-ETC is to use the provided shell-script which will add the project’s root directory to the PATH-variable. However the shell-script only works for virtual environment installations with the virtual environment named venv.

Linux / MacOS

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./run_esbo-etc [-h] [-c config.xml] [-l LOGGING] [-v] [-m]

Windows

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run_esbo-etc.bat [-h] [-c config.xml] [-l LOGGING] [-v] [-m]

Python Interpreter

An alternative way to start ESBO-ETC is by using the python interpreter from the command line. This method works for both a virtual environment as well as for the global python installation. Launching ESBO-ETC can be done using

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python esbo_etc/esbo-etc.py [-h] [-c config.xml] [-l LOGGING] [-v] [-m]

Component Overview

ESBO-ETC offers many different components to model the path from the astronomical target to the detector. All components can be divided into the three following classes.

Target

The component class Target models astronomical targets, defining the spectral flux density of their signal and their shape (point source vs. extended source). Currently, two different target types are available:

  • A target modelled as black body with a given temperature and apparent magnitude.

  • A target with the signal’s spectral flux density read from a file.

Optical Component

Multiple optical components are available for modelling the signal and background flux propagation. The hot optical components with a thermal grey body emission form a subclass of the optical components. Currently, the following optical components are available

  • An atmosphere component modelling the atmospheric transmittance and emission, both read from files.

  • An ATRAN component to model the atmosphere using the ATRAN atmopsheric transmission calculator.

  • A stray light component for modelling generic background source like zodiacal light or earth stray light.

  • A cosmic background component to model thermal black body background radiation like the 2.7 K cosmic background radiation.

  • Hot optical components with thermal emission of a given temperature and emissivity:

    • A mirror component modelling the optical properties of a mirror like the mirror’s reflectance.

    • A lens component the optical properties of a lens like the lens’ transmittance.

    • A beam splitter component the optical properties of a beam splitter like the beam splitter’s transmittance.

    • A filter component the optical properties of a filter like the filter’s transmittance.

Sensor

Currently, two sensor components are available:

  • The imager detector for generic imaging sensors like CCDs providing many parameters to adapt the component to the needs like the dark current, the read noise, pixel size, array size but also parameters for the photometric aperture like the percentage of contained energy or the shape of the photometric aperture.

  • The heterodyne sensor for spectroscopy using the heterodyne principle providing also multiple parameters.