User guide

The user guide explains the concepts behind wcc-etc and how the pieces fit together. It complements the auto-generated API reference, which gives the exact signatures and docstrings.

• Concepts and architecture
  • The three building blocks
  • Constructing a simulation
  • Inspecting and updating parameters
  • Count rates and the electron budget
  • Accessor properties
• Scenes, sources, and backgrounds
  • Building a scene
  • Magnitude systems
  • Stellar and galaxy templates
  • Parametric source spectra
  • Rebuilding a parametric spectrum with update
  • Backgrounds
  • Working with scene elements directly
• Signal-to-noise and exposure time
  • Image-based SNR (the default)
  • Exposure time for a target SNR
  • Multiple reads (n_reads)
  • The analytic Airy SNR
• PSFs and image simulation
  • PSF models
  • Automatic PSF selection by focus level
  • Simulating an image
  • Grid size and oversampling
  • Telescope jitter
• Saturation
  • The peak pixel
  • The saturation flag
  • Saturation in the image and SNR paths
• Plotting
  • The house style
  • The four plots
  • Two ways to call them
  • Convenience methods on SimulatedImage
  • Return values and embedding

If you prefer to learn by example, the Tutorials cover the same material as runnable notebooks.