Otimização dos modos de operação do sistema de aquisição do instrumento SPARC4

Abstract

This work presents a methodology developed to optimize the performance of the EMCCDs of the SPARC4 instrument. It was developed two packages in Python to calculate the signal-to-noise ratio and the acquisition rate of the CCDs, according to its operation mode. Each of these packages are used in the optimization of the parameters of the CCDs. It has been developed the following three methods for optimization: (1) optimize the signalto- noise ratio, (2) optimize the acquisition rate, and (3) optimize both parameters at the same time. The latter uses the Bayesian Optimization Method to determine the optimum mode. It has been performed a series of tests to validate the method. To accomplish these tests, it has been developed an artificial image simulator to simulate a star image acquired by the cameras. After the tests, it has been applied the method to optimize the operation mode of the CCD for a series of archival data from several nights of observations carried out at the Picos dos Dias Observatory. It was possible to obtain an improvement in the CCD performance for all nights analyzed. We show that if this method was used as a tool to optimize the operation mode of the CCDs, it would have been possible to save an amount of telescope time equivalent to 97.17 %, 65.08 %, and 77.66 %, for optimizaton modes 1, 2, and 3, respectively. We conclude that this method can be used to determine the operation mode of the SPARC4 CCDs, where it can contribute to an improvement in the quality of the scientific data acquired at the observatory as well as in the allocation of larger projects for the same number of nights.