THE EDDINGTON CCD DATA SIMULATOR

摘要

There are many open questions relating to the design and observing strategy for Eddington as well as to the data reduction methods that will be applied. The optimal solutions to these questions can only be found through extensive and realistic data simulations - simulations that will also help to assess and understand the expected final data quality. We have developed a CCD data simulator that can be used in detailed tests and verification of the Eddington data itself and in the development and optimisation of the on-board data reduction algorithms. The simulator can be used to characterise the instrumental noise profile to be included in the stellar time series simulations described by De Ridder et al. In this paper we present the simulator to the Eddington community and we demonstrate its capabilities and show examples of its performance.