Getting Started#

Before installation, ensure that you have a working Python => 3.6 environment on your machine. Since this module enforces specific versions of pandas, numpy, and pyarrow it would also be wise to create a new conda-env.

Installation#

While we are still in beta release, the only option to download the module is directly through github.:

git clone https://github.com/asas-sn/skypatrol.git
pip3 install skypatrol/

Client#

Once you have received a username and token password you will be able to create a client. The client object contains information about all available input catalogs. Sky Patrol input catalogs are generated directly from NASA’s HEASARC archive and are searchable by all original columns. The stellar_main catalog contains the bulk of our targets (> 98 million) and was built from the ATLAS Refcat2 source list; it is cross-matched with both Gaia DR2 and the TESS Input Catalog (TICv8). The master_list catalog gives all the targets for which we have lightcurves. Our targets are cross-matched accross all our input catalogs with 2 arc second cones.

>>> from pyasassn.client import SkyPatrolClient
>>> client = SkyPatrolClient()
>>> client.catalogs

Table Name: stellar_main
Num Columns: 47
Num Targets: 98932961

Table Name: master_list
Num Columns: 4
Num Targets: 103874668

Table Name: comets
Num Columns: 1
Num Targets: 1825

Table Name: swift
Num Columns: 56
Num Targets: 254936

Table Name: allwiseagn
Num Columns: 15
Num Targets: 1354900

Table Name: mdwarf
Num Columns: 32
Num Targets: 8927

Table Name: milliquas
Num Columns: 21
Num Targets: 1979676

...

Before you begin queries you can check each input catalog for available columns and data-types.

>>> client.catalogs.master_list

         col_names         dtypes
0       asas_sn_id         bigint
1           ra_deg         double
2          dec_deg         double
3  catalog_sources  array<string>

>>> client.catalogs.milliquas

        col_names  dtypes
0      asas_sn_id  bigint
1          ra_deg  double
2         dec_deg  double
3            name  string
4             lii  double
5             bii  double
6      broad_type  string
7            rmag  double
8            bmag  double
9    optical_flag  string
10   red_psf_flag  string
11  blue_psf_flag  string
12       redshift  double
13       ref_name  string
14   ref_redshift  string
15       qso_prob  double
16     radio_name  string
17      xray_name  string
18     alt_name_1  string
19     alt_name_2  string
20          class  bigint

Notice that asas_sn_id is common to all of our input catalogs. This is the mechanism that allows you to pull lightcurves.