Simulating PSFs for WFIRST and JWST with WebbPSF
Abstract
Accurate models of a telescope's point spread function are key to predicting its performance and extracting information from observations. Developed at STScI since 2010, WebbPSF is a flexible Python-based PSF simulation tool initially developed for JWST's imaging, spectroscopy, and coronagraphic instruments. We present improvements that allow this tool to simulate PSFs for the WFIRST wide-field imaging mode, as well as additional spectroscopy modes for the NIRSpec, MIRI, and NIRISS instruments on JWST. The WFIRST wide field imaging mode is also the first WebbPSF model to simulate PSF variation across the entire field of view. These variations are included in the Fraunhofer-domain PSF calculation as Zernike polynomial terms up to Z22. As WFIRST is still early in its development, high-spatial-frequency wavefront errors (beyond Z22) are incorporated using an optical path difference map from another notable 2.4 meter space telescope. Common infrastructure to build simulated optical instruments has been made available as POPPY (Physical Optics Propagation in Python), an open-source library that has seen contributions from users in astronomy and beyond.
- Publication:
-
American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #227
- Pub Date:
- January 2016
- Bibcode:
- 2016AAS...22711301L