instrument

Constants, functions and data related to the CHEOPS instrument.

Functions

pycheops.instrument.response(passband='CHEOPS')

Instrument response functions.

The response functions have been digitized from Fig. 2 of https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/cheops/cheops-performances

The available passband names are ‘CHEOPS’, ‘MOST’, ‘Kepler’, ‘CoRoT’, ‘Gaia’, ‘B’, ‘V’, ‘R’, ‘I’, ‘u_’,’g_’,’r_’,’i_’,’z_’, and ‘NGTS’

Parameters

passband – instrument/passband names (case sensitive).

Returns

Instrument response function as an astropy Table object.

pycheops.instrument.visibility(ra, dec)

Estimate of target visibility

The target visibility estimated with this function is approximate. A more reliable estimate of the observing efficiency can be made with the Feasibility Checker tool.

Parameters
  • ra – right ascension in degrees (scalar or array)

  • dec – declination in degrees (scalar or array)

Returns

target visibility (%)

pycheops.instrument.exposure_time(G)

Recommended minimum/maximum exposure times

The function returns the exposure times that are estimated to provide 10% and 98% of the detector full well capacity in the brightest image pixel of the target.

param G

Gaia G-band magnitude

returns

min,max recommended exposure time

pycheops.instrument.transit_noise(time, flux, flux_err, T_0=None, width=3, h_1=0.7224, h_2=0.6713, tol=0.1, method='scaled')

Transit noise estimate

The noise is calculated in a window of duration ‘width’ in hours centered at time T_0 by first dividing out the best-fitting transit (even if this has a negative depth), and then finding the depth of an injected transit that gives S/N = 1.

Two methods are available to estimate the transit depth and its standard error - ‘scaled’ or ‘minerr’.

If method=’scaled’, the transit depth and its standard error are calculated assuming that the true standard errors on the flux measurements are a factor f times the nominal standard error(s) provided in flux_err.

If method=’minerr’, the transit depth and its standard error are calculated assuming that standard error(s) provided in flux_err are a lower bound to the true standard errors. This tends to be more conservative than using method=’scaled’.

The transit is calculated from an impact parameter b=0 using power-2 limb darkening parameters h_1 and h_2. Default values for h_1 and h_2 are solar values.

If T_0 is not specifed that the median value of time is used.

If there are insufficient data for the calculation the function returns values returned are np.nan, np.nan

param time

Array of observed times (days)

param flux

Array of normalised flux measurements

param flux_err

Standard error estimate(s) for flux - array of scalar

param T_0

Centre of time window for noise estimate

param width

Width of time window for noise estimate in hours

param h_1

Limb darkening parameter

param h_2

Limb darkening parameter

param tol

Tolerance criterion for convergence (ppm)

param method

‘scaled’ or ‘minerr’

returns

noise in ppm and, if method is ‘scaled’, noise scaling factor, f

pycheops.instrument.count_rate(gmag, bp_rp)

Predicted count rate

The count rate in e-/s based on the star’s Gaia G magnitude and G_BP-R_BP colour. This value returned is suitable for use in the CHEOPS exposure time calculator using the option “Expected flux in CHEOPS passband”

** Currently based on stellar models convolved with throughout and QE curves measured pre-launch.