Abstract¶
An Exposure Time Calculator (ETC) is an invaluable web tool for astronomers wishing to submit proposals to use the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). It provide a means of estimating how much telescope time will be needed to observe a specified source to the required accuracy. The current HST ETC was written in Java and has been used for several proposing cycles, but for various reasons has become difficult to maintain and keep reliable. Last year we decided a complete rewrite—in Python, of course—was needed and began an intensive effort to develop a well-tested replacement before the next proposing cycle this year.
This paper will explain what the ETC does and outline the challenges involved in developing a new implementation that clearly demonstrates that it gets the right answers and meet the needed level of reliability (astronomers get cranky when the calculator stops working on the day before the proposal deadline). The new ETC must be flexible enough to enable quick updates for new features and accommodate changing data about HST instruments. The architecture of the new system will allow Python-savvy astronomers to use the calculation engine directly for batch processing or science exploration.
Testing is a very large component of this effort, and we discuss how we use existing test cases, as well as new systematic test generators to properly explore parameter space for doing test comparisons, and a locally developed test management system to monitor and efficiently analyze thousands of complex test cases.
