Simulating instruments for mining uncalibrated archives

As the astronomical community continues to produce deeper and higher resolution data, it becomes increasingly important to provide tools to the scientist that help mining the data in order to provide only the scientifically interesting images. In the case of uncalibrated archives, this task is especially difficult as it is difficult to know whether an interesting source can be seen on images without actually looking. Here, we show how instrument simulation can be used to lightly process the database-stored image descriptors of the ESO/Wide Field Imager (WFI) archive, and compute the corresponding limiting magnitudes. The end result is a more scientific description of the ESO/ST-ECF archive contents, allowing a more astronomer-friendly archive user interface, and hence increasing the archive useability in the context of a Virtual Observatory. This method is developed for improving the Querator search engine of ESO/HST archive, in the context of the EC funded ASTROVIRTEL project, but also provides an independant tool that can be adapted to other archives.