Simulating images with SKYMAKER

SKYMAKER will only be temporarily used for simulations until PhotUtils is implemented into the pipeline

SKYMAKER is a program used to generate characteristic star fields based on given parameters set by the user. The program takes in a given catalog of stars and outputs a fits file containing the sources. The following steps highlight how to generate an image using this program. All lines run from the command line (terminal):

[FILES NEEDED BEFORE RUNNING SKYMAKER]:

stuff.conf -> to obtain, run: stuff -d

sky_stars.conf -> to obtain, run: sky -d and change sky.conf to sky_stars

sky.conf -> to obtain, run: sky -d

• Go into sky.conf and change the parameter of STARCOUNT_ZP to be equal to zero (should be set to 3e4 by default)

(1) stuff -c stuff.conf

• Generates 3 catalogs of galaxies [outputs: g.list, r.list, i.list]

(2) sky g.list -c sky_stars.conf

• Generates a fits image and list with galaxies and a stellar field [outputs: sky.list and sky.fits]

(3) Rename the sky.list file to some other name [for this example, I will call it background.list]

(4) Go into background.list and remove all lines that have a 200 at the beginning of them

• This removes the galaxy objects from the catalog

(5) sky background.list -c sky.conf

• This creates the fits file with the characteristic star field [outputs: sky.list and sky.fits]

***Other Important Notes ***

• If you want to change characteristics of the image, change parameters in the sky.conf file

• To change the number of stars in the image, change the value of the STARCOUNT_ZP parameter in the sky_stars.conf file

• If you want to include galaxy formations in your image, you can stop at step 2 in the above process