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SLIM is no longer supported!

With the advent of the slitless simulation software aXeSIM the support of SLIM is being discontinued (from November 26th 2007 on). The SLIM webpages will be still around for some time, however mostly to point to the new software for simulating slitless spectroscopic images, aXeSIM.

aXeSIM is superior to SLIM since it:

  • uses C executables for a faster processing;
  • uses the identical aXe configuration files for simulating slitless images;
  • works as a user friendly PyRAF package;
  • has more options;
  • does not depend on old python modules as SLIM.

All users of SLIM are strongly encouraged to switch to aXeSIM!

What is SLIM?

SLIM is a slitless spectroscopy simulator created to produce ACS grism and prism simulated spectra.

Requirements:

SLIM is written in Python and requires that Python 2.0 (or newer) is installed on your system. In addition to Python the following modules must also be available:

Additional Files

Some calibration files and input spectrum templates are needed to run SLIM. They are provided together with the source code. Specific configuration files for the ACS grisms and prisms are provided here:

We will continuously update these configuration files as soon as new calibrations become available. The images created by SLIM resemble real ACS data as closely as possible (with the exception of noise).

Quick Start

  • grab the files SLIM12.tar.gz and SLIM12_config.tar.gz listed above
  • decompress them in your home directory
  • cd ~/SLIM12/simul
  • copy the WFC Chip 1 configuration file WFC1_GL800.conf to the current directory: cp ../confs/WFC1_GL800.conf .
  • edit this file and replace "/xxx/" by the proper path to your SLIM 1.2 directory
  • run the command "python ../src/slim.py WFC1.conf obj.txt" to start the simulation

Documentation

  • SLIM HOWTO.

  • "The HDF as seen by the Advanced Camera for Surveys" - A poster paper discussing simulations produced with the ST-ECF simulator SLIM and presented during the ESO/ST-ECF/STSCI Deep Field conference in Munich (9/10-12/10 2000) is available here.

  • "SLIM: a program to simulate the ACS spectroscopic modes" - A poster paper discussing the simulator SLIM and presented at ADASS X in Boston (11/12-11/15 2000) is available here.

  • "Spectrophotometry with the ACS Wide Field Channel" - A poster paper presenting ACS WFC simulations of emission line objects was presented at the 197th AAS (7/01-11/01 2001) is available here.

  • "SLIM - grism simulator for the ACS" - A ECF newsletter article presenting the ST-ECF slitless mode simulator and some ACS WFC simulation is available here here

Example

The left panel shows a color composite (F435W, F606W, F814W) of a simulated ACS/WFC image of an HDF-N like field. The right panel shows a 1000 sec WFC grism observation simulated with SLIM of the field shown in the color composite. Details can be found in the poster papers given above.

Help and more information

For further help and more information concerning SLIM and its use, please contact acsdesk@eso.org

Maintained by Martin Kuemmel <mkuemmel@eso.org>