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Astrophysics Source Code Library

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Searching for 'FITS'

[ascl:9910.007] WINGSPAN: A WINdows Gamma-ray SPectral Analysis program

WINGSPAN is a program written to analyze spectral data from the Burst and Transient Source Experiment (BATSE) on NASA's Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory. Data files in the FITS (BFITS) format are suitable for input into the program. WINGSPAN can be used to view and manipulate event time histories or count spectra, and also has the capability to perform spectral deconvolution via a standard forward folding model fitting technique (Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm). Although WINGSPAN provides many functions for data manipulation, the program was designed to allow users to easily plug in their own external IDL routines. These external routines have access to all data read from the FITS files, as well as selection intervals created in the main part of WINGSPAN (background intervals and model, etc).

[ascl:9912.002] FTOOLS: A general package of software to manipulate FITS files

FTOOLS, a highly modular collection of utilities for processing and analyzing data in the FITS (Flexible Image Transport System) format, has been developed in support of the HEASARC (High Energy Astrophysics Research Archive Center) at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. The FTOOLS package contains many utility programs which perform modular tasks on any FITS image or table, as well as higher-level analysis programs designed specifically for data from current and past high energy astrophysics missions. The utility programs for FITS tables are especially rich and powerful, and provide functions for presentation of file contents, extraction of specific rows or columns, appending or merging tables, binning values in a column or selecting subsets of rows based on a boolean expression. Individual FTOOLS programs can easily be chained together in scripts to achieve more complex operations such as the generation and displaying of spectra or light curves. FTOOLS development began in 1991 and has produced the main set of data analysis software for the current ASCA and RXTE space missions and for other archival sets of X-ray and gamma-ray data. The FTOOLS software package is supported on most UNIX platforms and on Windows machines. The user interface is controlled by standard parameter files that are very similar to those used by IRAF. The package is self documenting through a stand alone help task called fhelp. Software is written in ANSI C and FORTRAN to provide portability across most computer systems. The data format dependencies between hardware platforms are isolated through the FITSIO library package.

[ascl:9912.003] RVSAO 2.0: Digital Redshifts and Radial Velocities

RVSAO is a set of programs to obtain redshifts and radial velocities from digital spectra. RVSAO operates in the IRAF (Tody 1986, 1993) environment. The heart of the system is xcsao, which implements the cross-correlation method, and is a direct descendant of the system built by Tonry and Davis (1979). emsao uses intelligent heuristics to search for emission lines in spectra, then fits them to obtain a redshift. sumspec shifts and sums spectra to build templates for cross-correlation. linespec builds synthetic spectra given a list of spectral lines. bcvcorr corrects velocities for the motion of the earth. We discuss in detail the parameters necessary to run xcsao and emsao properly. We discuss the reliability and error associated with xcsao derived redshifts. We develop an internal error estimator, and we show how large, stable surveys can be used to develop more accurate error estimators. We develop a new methodology for building spectral templates for galaxy redshifts. We show how to obtain correlation velocities using emission line templates. Emission line correlations are substantially more efficient than the previous standard technique, automated emission line fitting. We compare the use of RVSAO with new methods, which use Singular Value Decomposition and $chi^2$ fitting techniques.

[ascl:0003.002] SAOImage DS9: A utility for displaying astronomical images in the X11 window environment

SAOImage DS9 is an astronomical imaging and data visualization application. DS9 supports FITS images and binary tables, multiple frame buffers, region manipulation, and many scale algorithms and colormaps. It provides for easy communication with external analysis tasks and is highly configurable and extensible via XPA and SAMP. DS9 is a stand-alone application. It requires no installation or support files. Versions of DS9 currently exist for Solaris, Linux, MacOSX, and Windows. All versions and platforms support a consistent set of GUI and functional capabilities. DS9 supports advanced features such as multiple frame buffers, mosaic images, tiling, blinking, geometric markers, colormap manipulation, scaling, arbitrary zoom, rotation, pan, and a variety of coordinate systems. DS9 also supports FTP and HTTP access. The GUI for DS9 is user configurable. GUI elements such as the coordinate display, panner, magnifier, horizontal and vertical graphs, button bar, and colorbar can be configured via menus or the command line. DS9 is a Tk/Tcl application which utilizes the SAOTk widget set. It also incorporates the X Public Access (XPA) mechanism to allow external processes to access and control its data, GUI functions, and algorithms.

[ascl:1010.001] CFITSIO: A FITS File Subroutine Library

CFITSIO is a library of C and Fortran subroutines for reading and writing data files in FITS (Flexible Image Transport System) data format. CFITSIO provides simple high-level routines for reading and writing FITS files that insulate the programmer from the internal complexities of the FITS format. CFITSIO also provides many advanced features for manipulating and filtering the information in FITS files.

[ascl:1010.002] fpack: FITS Image Compression Program

fpack is a utility program for optimally compressing images in the FITS data format. The associated funpack program will restore the compressed file back to its original state. These programs may be run from the host operating system command line and are analogous to the gzip and gunzip utility programs, except that they are specifically optimized for FITS format images and offer a wider choice of compression options.

fpack uses the tiled image compression convention for storing the compressed images. This convention can in principle support any number of of different compression algorithms; currently GZIP, Rice, Hcompress, and the IRAF pixel list compression algorithms have been implemented.

The main advantages of fpack compared to the commonly used technique of externally compressing the whole FITS file with gzip are:

- It is generally faster and offers better compression than gzip.
- The FITS header keywords remain uncompressed for fast access.
- Each HDU of a multi-extension FITS file is compressed separately, so it is not necessary to uncompress the entire file to read a single image in a multi-extension file.
- Dividing the image into tiles before compression enables faster access to small subsections of the image.
- The compressed image is itself a valid FITS file and can be manipulated by other general FITS utility software.
- Lossy compression can be used for much higher compression in cases where it is not necessary to exactly preserve the original image.
- The CHECKSUM keywords are automatically updated to help verify the integrity of the files.
- Software that supports the tiled image compression technique can directly read and write the FITS images in their compressed form.

[ascl:1010.003] AMBER: Data Reduction Software

AMBER data reduction software has an optional graphic interface in a high level language, allowing the user to control the data reduction step by step or in a completely automatic manner. The software has a robust calibration scheme that make use of the full calibration sets available during the night. The output products are standard OI-FITS files, which can be used directly in high level software like model fitting or image reconstruction tools.

[ascl:1010.006] DSPSR: Digital Signal Processing Software for Pulsar Astronomy

DSPSR, written primarily in C++, is an open-source, object-oriented, digital signal processing software library and application suite for use in radio pulsar astronomy. The library implements an extensive range of modular algorithms for use in coherent dedispersion, filterbank formation, pulse folding, and other tasks. The software is installed and compiled using the standard GNU configure and make system, and is able to read astronomical data in 18 different file formats, including FITS, S2, CPSR, CPSR2, PuMa, PuMa2, WAPP, ASP, and Mark5.

[ascl:1010.029] DNEST: Diffusive Nested Sampling

This code is a general Monte Carlo method based on Nested Sampling (NS) for sampling complex probability distributions and estimating the normalising constant. The method uses one or more particles, which explore a mixture of nested probability distributions, each successive distribution occupying ~e^-1 times the enclosed prior mass of the previous distribution. While NS technically requires independent generation of particles, Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) exploration fits naturally into this technique. This method can achieve four times the accuracy of classic MCMC-based Nested Sampling, for the same computational effort; equivalent to a factor of 16 speedup. An additional benefit is that more samples and a more accurate evidence value can be obtained simply by continuing the run for longer, as in standard MCMC.

[ascl:1010.031] DimReduce: Nonlinear Dimensionality Reduction of Very Large Datasets with Locally Linear Embedding (LLE) and its Variants

DimReduce is a C++ package for performing nonlinear dimensionality reduction of very large datasets with Locally Linear Embedding (LLE) and its variants. DimReduce is built for speed, using the optimized linear algebra packages BLAS, LAPACK (ascl:2104.020), and ARPACK (ascl:1311.010). Because of the need for storing very large matrices (1000 by 10000, for our SDSS LLE work), DimReduce is designed to use binary FITS files as inputs and outputs. This means that using the code is a bit more cumbersome. For smaller-scale LLE, where speed of computation is not as much of an issue, the Modular Data Processing toolkit may be a better choice. It is a python toolkit with some LLE functionality, which VanderPlas contributed.

This code has been rewritten and included in scikit-learn and an improved version is included in http://mmp2.github.io/megaman/

[ascl:1010.034] iCosmo: An Interactive Cosmology Package

iCosmo is a software package to perform interactive cosmological calculations for the low redshift universe. The computation of distance measures, the matter power spectrum, and the growth factor is supported for any values of the cosmological parameters. It also performs the computation of observables for several cosmological probes such as weak gravitational lensing, baryon acoustic oscillations and supernovae. The associated errors for these observables can be derived for customised surveys, or for pre-set values corresponding to current or planned instruments. The code also allows for the calculation of cosmological forecasts with Fisher matrices which can be manipulated to combine different surveys and cosmological probes. The code is written in the IDL language and thus benefits from the convenient interactive features and scientific library available in this language. iCosmo can also be used as an engine to perform cosmological calculations in batch mode, and forms a convenient evolutive platform for the development of further cosmological modules. With its extensive documentation, it may also serve as a useful resource for teaching and for newcomers in the field of cosmology.

[ascl:1010.036] Montage: An Astronomical Image Mosaicking Toolkit

Montage is an open source code toolkit for assembling Flexible Image Transport System (FITS) images into custom mosaics. It runs on all common Linux/Unix platforms, on desktops, clusters and computational grids, and supports all World Coordinate System (WCS) projections and common coordinate systems. Montage preserves spatial and calibration fidelity of input images, processes 40 million pixels in up to 32 minutes on 128 nodes on a Linux cluster, and provides independent engines for analyzing the geometry of images on the sky, re-projecting images, rectifying background emission to a common level, and co-adding images. It offers convenient tools for managing and manipulating large image files.

[ascl:1010.046] indexf: Line-strength Indices in Fully Calibrated FITS Spectra

This program measures line-strength indices in fully calibrated FITS spectra. By "fully calibrated" one should understand wavelength and relative flux-calibrated data. Note that the different types of line-strength indices that can be measured with indexf (see below) do not require absolute flux calibration. If even a relative flux-calibration is absent (or deficient), the derived indices should be transformed to an appropriate spectrophotometric system. The program can also compute index errors resulting from the propagation of random errors (e.g. photon statistics, read-out noise). This option is only available if the user provides the error spectrum as an additional input FITS file to indexf. The error spectrum must contain the unbiased standard deviation (and not the variance!) for each pixel of the data spectrum. In addition, indexf also estimates the effect of errors on radial velocity. For this purpose, the program performs Monte Carlo simulations by measuring each index using randomly drawn radial velocities (following a Gaussian distribution of a given standard deviation). If no error file is employed, the program can perform numerical simulations with synthetic error spectra, the latter generated from the original data spectra and assuming randomly generated S/N ratios.

[ascl:1010.051] NEMO: A Stellar Dynamics Toolbox

NEMO is an extendible Stellar Dynamics Toolbox, following an Open-Source Software model. It has various programs to create, integrate, analyze and visualize N-body and SPH like systems, following the pipe and filter architecture. In addition there are various tools to operate on images, tables and orbits, including FITS files to export/import to/from other astronomical data reduction packages. A large growing fraction of NEMO has been contributed by a growing list of authors. The source code consist of a little over 4000 files and a little under 1,000,000 lines of code and documentation, mostly C, and some C++ and Fortran. NEMO development started in 1986 in Princeton (USA) by Barnes, Hut and Teuben. See also ZENO (ascl:1102.027) for the version that Barnes maintains.

[ascl:1010.057] Tiny Tim: Simulated Hubble Space Telescope PSFs

Tiny Tim generates simulated Hubble Space Telescope point spread functions (PSFs). It is written in C and distributed as source code and runs on a wide variety of UNIX and VMS systems. Tiny Tim includes mirror zonal errors, time dependent aberrations (for the pre-repair instruments), field dependent obscuration patterns (for WF/PC-1 and WFPC2), and filter passband effects. It can produce a normally sampled or subsampled PSF. Output is a FITS image file.

[ascl:1010.062] MissFITS: Basic Maintenance and Packaging Tasks on FITS Files

MissFITS is a program that performs basic maintenance and packaging tasks on FITS files using an optimized FITS library. MissFITS can:

- add, edit, and remove FITS header keywords;
- split and join Multi-Extension-FITS (MEF) files;
- unpile and pile FITS data-cubes; and,
- create, check, and update FITS checksums, using R. Seaman’s protocol.

[ascl:1010.063] SCAMP: Automatic Astrometric and Photometric Calibration

Astrometric and photometric calibrations have remained the most tiresome step in the reduction of large imaging surveys. SCAMP has been written to address this problem. The program efficiently computes accurate astrometric and photometric solutions for any arbitrary sequence of FITS images in a completely automatic way. SCAMP is released under the GNU General Public License.

[ascl:1010.068] SWarp: Resampling and Co-adding FITS Images Together

SWarp resamples and co-adds together FITS images using any arbitrary astrometric projection defined in the WCS standard. It operates on pre-reduced images and their weight-maps. Based on the astrometric and photometric calibrations derived at an earlier phase of the pipeline, SWarp re-maps ("warps") the pixels to a perfect projection system, and co-adds them in an optimum way, according to their relative weights. SWarp's astrometric engine is based on a customized version of Calabretta's WCSLib 2.6 and supports all of the projections defined in the 2000 version of the WCS proposal.

[ascl:1011.002] DAOSPEC: An Automatic Code for Measuring Equivalent Widths in High-resolution Stellar Spectra

DAOSPEC is a Fortran code for measuring equivalent widths of absorption lines in stellar spectra with minimal human involvement. It works with standard FITS format files and it is designed for use with high resolution (R>15000) and high signal-to-noise-ratio (S/N>30) spectra that have been binned on a linear wavelength scale. First, we review the analysis procedures that are usually employed in the literature. Next, we discuss the principles underlying DAOSPEC and point out similarities and differences with respect to conventional measurement techniques. Then experiments with artificial and real spectra are discussed to illustrate the capabilities and limitations of DAOSPEC, with special attention given to the issues of continuum placement; radial velocities; and the effects of strong lines and line crowding. Finally, quantitative comparisons with other codes and with results from the literature are also presented.

[ascl:1011.003] ZPEG: An Extension of the Galaxy Evolution Model PEGASE.2

Photometric redshifts are estimated on the basis of template scenarios with the help of the code ZPEG, an extension of the galaxy evolution model PEGASE.2 and available on the PEGASE web site. The spectral energy distribution (SED) templates are computed for nine spectral types including starburst, irregular, spiral and elliptical. Dust, extinction and metal effects are coherently taken into account, depending on evolution scenarios. The sensitivity of results to adding near-infrared colors and IGM absorption is analyzed. A comparison with results of other models without evolution measures the evolution factor which systematically increases the estimated photometric redshift values by $Delta z$ > 0.2 for z > 1.5. Moreover we systematically check that the evolution scenarios match observational standard templates of nearby galaxies, implying an age constraint of the stellar population at z=0 for each type. The respect of this constraint makes it possible to significantly improve the accuracy of photometric redshifts by decreasing the well-known degeneracy problem. The method is applied to the HDF-N sample. From fits on SED templates by a $chi^2$-minimization procedure, not only is the photometric redshift derived but also the corresponding spectral type and the formation redshift $z_for$ when stars first formed. Early epochs of galaxy formation z > 5 are found from this new method and results are compared to faint galaxy count interpretations.

[ascl:1011.010] Global Sky Model (GSM): A Model of Diffuse Galactic Radio Emission from 10 MHz to 100 GHz

Understanding diffuse Galactic radio emission is interesting both in its own right and for minimizing foreground contamination of cosmological measurements. Cosmic Microwave Background experiments have focused on frequencies > 10 GHz, whereas 21 cm tomography of the high redshift universe will mainly focus on < 0.2 GHz, for which less is currently known about Galactic emission. Motivated by this, we present a global sky model derived from all publicly available total power large-area radio surveys, digitized with optical character recognition when necessary and compiled into a uniform format, as well as the new Villa Elisa data extending the 1.4 GHz map to the entire sky. We quantify statistical and systematic uncertainties in these surveys by comparing them with various global multi-frequency model fits. We find that a principal component based model with only three components can fit the 11 most accurate data sets (at 10, 22, 45 & 408 MHz and 1.4, 2.3, 23, 33, 41, 61, 94 GHz) to an accuracy around 1%-10% depending on frequency and sky region. The data compilation and software returning a predicted all-sky map at any frequency from 10 MHz to 100 GHz are publicly available in the archive file at the link below.

[ascl:1011.022] yt: A Multi-Code Analysis Toolkit for Astrophysical Simulation Data

yt is an open source, community-developed volumetric analysis and visualization toolkit. Originally designed for handling Enzo's (ascl:1010.072) structure adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) data, yt has been extended to work with numerous simulation methods and simulation codes including Orion, RAMSES (ascl:1011.007), and FLASH (ascl:1010.082). Analysis and visualization with yt are oriented around physically relevant quantities rather than quantities native to data representation on-disk or in-memory. yt can be used for projections, multivariate volume rendering, multi-dimensional histograms, halo finding, light cone generation and topologically-connected isocontour identification.

yt benefits from the contributions of a broad range of community members, and a full list of credits for the code can be found on the yt website or in the source repository.

[ascl:1101.004] InterpMC: Caching and Interpolated Likelihoods -- Accelerating Cosmological Monte Carlo Markov Chains

We describe a novel approach to accelerating Monte Carlo Markov Chains. Our focus is cosmological parameter estimation, but the algorithm is applicable to any problem for which the likelihood surface is a smooth function of the free parameters and computationally expensive to evaluate. We generate a high-order interpolating polynomial for the log-likelihood using the first points gathered by the Markov chains as a training set. This polynomial then accurately computes the majority of the likelihoods needed in the latter parts of the chains. We implement a simple version of this algorithm as a patch (InterpMC) to CosmoMC and show that it accelerates parameter estimatation by a factor of between two and four for well-converged chains. The current code is primarily intended as a "proof of concept", and we argue that there is considerable room for further performance gains. Unlike other approaches to accelerating parameter fits, we make no use of precomputed training sets or special choices of variables, and InterpMC is almost entirely transparent to the user.

[ascl:1101.010] TOPCAT: Tool for OPerations on Catalogues And Tables

TOPCAT is an interactive graphical viewer and editor for tabular data. Its aim is to provide most of the facilities that astronomers need for analysis and manipulation of source catalogues and other tables, though it can be used for non-astronomical data as well. It understands a number of different astronomically important formats (including FITS and VOTable) and more formats can be added.

It offers a variety of ways to view and analyse tables, including a browser for the cell data themselves, viewers for information about table and column metadata, and facilities for 1-, 2-, 3- and higher-dimensional visualisation, calculating statistics and joining tables using flexible matching algorithms. Using a powerful and extensible Java-based expression language new columns can be defined and row subsets selected for separate analysis. Table data and metadata can be edited and the resulting modified table can be written out in a wide range of output formats.

It is a stand-alone application which works quite happily with no network connection. However, because it uses Virtual Observatory (VO) standards, it can cooperate smoothly with other tools in the VO world and beyond, such as VODesktop, Aladin and ds9. Between 2006 and 2009 TOPCAT was developed within the AstroGrid project, and is offered as part of a standard suite of applications on the AstroGrid web site, where you can find information on several other VO tools.

The program is written in pure Java and available under the GNU General Public Licence. It has been developed in the UK within the Starlink and AstroGrid projects, and under PPARC and STFC grants. Its underlying table processing facilities are provided by STIL.

[ascl:1102.012] CPROPS: Bias-free Measurement of Giant Molecular Cloud Properties

CPROPS, written in IDL, processes FITS data cubes containing molecular line emission and returns the properties of molecular clouds contained within it. Without corrections for the effects of beam convolution and sensitivity to GMC properties, the resulting properties may be severely biased. This is particularly true for extragalactic observations, where resolution and sensitivity effects often bias measured values by 40% or more. We correct for finite spatial and spectral resolutions with a simple deconvolution and we correct for sensitivity biases by extrapolating properties of a GMC to those we would expect to measure with perfect sensitivity. The resulting method recovers the properties of a GMC to within 10% over a large range of resolutions and sensitivities, provided the clouds are marginally resolved with a peak signal-to-noise ratio greater than 10. We note that interferometers systematically underestimate cloud properties, particularly the flux from a cloud. The degree of bias depends on the sensitivity of the observations and the (u,v) coverage of the observations. In the Appendix to the paper we present a conservative, new decomposition algorithm for identifying GMCs in molecular-line observations. This algorithm treats the data in physical rather than observational units, does not produce spurious clouds in the presence of noise, and is sensitive to a range of morphologies. As a result, the output of this decomposition should be directly comparable among disparate data sets.

The CPROPS package contains within it a distribution of the CLUMPFIND code written by Jonathan Williams and described in Williams, de Geus, and Blitz (1994). The package is available as a stand alone package. If you make use of the CLUMPFIND functionality in the CPROPS package for a publication, please cite Jonathan's original article.

[ascl:1104.004] MASSCLEAN: MASSive CLuster Evolution and ANalysis Package

MASSCLEAN is a sophisticated and robust stellar cluster image and photometry simulation package. This package is able to create color-magnitude diagrams and standard FITS images in any of the traditional optical and near-infrared bands based on cluster characteristics input by the user, including but not limited to distance, age, mass, radius and extinction. At the limit of very distant, unresolved clusters, we have checked the integrated colors created in MASSCLEAN against those from other simple stellar population (SSP) models with consistent results. Because the algorithm populates the cluster with a discrete number of tenable stars, it can be used as part of a Monte Carlo Method to derive the probabilistic range of characteristics (integrated colors, for example) consistent with a given cluster mass and age.

[ascl:1104.007] ULySS: A Full Spectrum Fitting Package

ULySS (University of Lyon Spectroscopic Analysis Software) is an open-source software package written in the GDL/IDL language to analyze astronomical data. ULySS fits a spectrum with a linear combination of non-linear components convolved with a line-of-sight velocity distribution (LOSVD) and multiplied by a polynomial continuum. ULySS is used to study stellar populations of galaxies and star clusters and atmospheric parameters of stars.

[ascl:1104.008] Rmodel: Determining Stellar Population Parameters

This program determines stellar population parameters (e.g. age, metallicity, IMF slope,...), using as input a pair of line-strength indices, through the interpolation in SSP model predictions. Both linear and bivariate fits are computed to perform the interpolation.

[ascl:1104.011] DAOPHOT: Crowded-field Stellar Photometry Package

The DAOPHOT program exploits the capability of photometrically linear image detectors to perform stellar photometry in crowded fields. Raw CCD images are prepared prior to analysis, and following the obtaining of an initial star list with the FIND program, synthetic aperture photometry is performed on the detected objects with the PHOT routine. A local sky brightness and a magnitude are computed for each star in each of the specified stellar apertures, and for crowded fields, the empirical point-spread function must then be obtained for each data frame. The GROUP routine divides the star list for a given frame into optimum subgroups, and then the NSTAR routine is used to obtain photometry for all the stars in the frame by means of least-squares profile fits.

[ascl:1105.001] STILTS: Starlink Tables Infrastructure Library Tool Set

The STIL Tool Set is a set of command-line tools based on STIL, the Starlink Tables Infrastructure Library. It deals with the processing of tabular data; the package has been designed for, but is not restricted to, astronomical tables such as object catalogues. Some of the tools are generic and can work with multiple formats (including FITS, VOTable, CSV, SQL and ASCII), and others are specific to the VOTable format. In some ways, STILTS forms the command-line counterpart of the GUI table analysis tool TOPCAT. The package is robust, fully documented, and designed for efficiency, especially with very large datasets.

Facilities offered include:

- format conversion
- crossmatching
- plotting
- column calculation and rearrangement
- row selections
- data and metadata manipulation and display
- sorting
- statistical calculations
- histogram calculation
- data validation
- VO service access

A powerful and extensible expression language is used for specifying data calculations. These facilities can be put together in very flexible and efficient ways. For tasks in which the data can be streamed, the size of table STILTS can process is effectively unlimited. For other tasks, million-row tables usually do not present a problem. STILTS is written in pure Java (J2SE1.5 or later), and can be run from the command line or from Jython, or embedded into java applications. It is released under the GPL.

[ascl:1107.003] FITSManager: Management of Personal Astronomical Data

With the increase of personal storage capacity, it is easy to find hundreds to thousands of FITS files in the personal computer of an astrophysicist. Because Flexible Image Transport System (FITS) is a professional data format initiated by astronomers and used mainly in the small community, data management toolkits for FITS files are very few. Astronomers need a powerful tool to help them manage their local astronomical data. Although Virtual Observatory (VO) is a network oriented astronomical research environment, its applications and related technologies provide useful solutions to enhance the management and utilization of astronomical data hosted in an astronomer's personal computer. FITSManager is such a tool to provide astronomers an efficient management and utilization of their local data, bringing VO to astronomers in a seamless and transparent way. FITSManager provides fruitful functions for FITS file management, like thumbnail, preview, type dependent icons, header keyword indexing and search, collaborated working with other tools and online services, and so on. The development of the FITSManager is an effort to fill the gap between management and analysis of astronomical data.

[ascl:1107.017] PRESTO: PulsaR Exploration and Search TOolkit

PRESTO is a large suite of pulsar search and analysis software. It was primarily designed to efficiently search for binary millisecond pulsars from long observations of globular clusters (although it has since been used in several surveys with short integrations and to process a lot of X-ray data as well). To date, PRESTO has discovered well over a hundred and fifty pulsars, including approximately 100 recycled pulsars, about 80 of which are in binaries. It is written primarily in ANSI C, with many of the recent routines in Python.

Written with portability, ease-of-use, and memory efficiency in mind, it can currently handle raw data from the following pulsar machines or formats:

- PSRFITS search-format data (as from GUPPI at the GBT and the Mock Spectrometers at Arecibo)
- SPIGOT at the GBT
- Most Wideband Arecibo Pulsar Processor (WAPP) at Arecibo
- The Parkes and Jodrell Bank 1-bit filterbank formats
- Berkeley-Caltech Pulsar Machine (BCPM) at the GBT (may it RIP...)
- 8-bit filterbank format from SIGPROC (other formats will be added if required)
- A time series composed of single precision (i.e. 4-byte) floating point data
- Photon arrival times (or events) in ASCII or double-precision binary formats

[ascl:1108.001] IMCAT: Image and Catalogue Manipulation Software

The IMCAT software was developed initially to do faint galaxy photometry for weak lensing studies, and provides a fairly complete set of tools for this kind of work. Unlike most packages for doing data analysis, the tools are standalone unix commands which you can invoke from the shell, via shell scripts or from perl scripts. The tools are arranges in a tree of directories. One main branch is the ’imtools’. These deal only with fits files. The most important imtool is the ’image calculator’ ’ic’ which allows one to do rather general operations on fits images. A second branch is the ’catools’ which operate only on catalogues. The key cattool is ’lc’; this effectively defines the format of IMCAT catalogues, and allows one to do very general operations on and filtering of such catalogues. A third branch is the ’imcattools’. These tend to be much more specialised than the cattools and imcattools and are focussed on faint galaxy photometry.

[ascl:1108.003] WCSLIB and PGSBOX

WCSLIB is a C library, supplied with a full set of Fortran wrappers, that implements the "World Coordinate System" (WCS) standard in FITS (Flexible Image Transport System). It also includes a PGPLOT-based routine, PGSBOX, for drawing general curvilinear coordinate graticules and a number of utility programs.

[ascl:1108.018] STECKMAP: STEllar Content and Kinematics via Maximum A Posteriori likelihood

STECKMAP stands for STEllar Content and Kinematics via Maximum A Posteriori likelihood. It is a tool for interpreting galaxy spectra in terms of their stellar populations through the derivation of their star formation history, age-metallicity relation, kinematics and extinction. The observed spectrum is projected onto a temporal sequence of models of single stellar populations, so as to determine a linear combination of these models that best fits the observed spectrum. The weights of the various components of this linear combination indicate the stellar content of the population. This procedure is regularized using various penalizing functions. The principles of the method are detailed in Ocvirk et al. 2006.

[ascl:1109.001] PySpecKit: Python Spectroscopic Toolkit

PySpecKit is a Python spectroscopic analysis and reduction toolkit meant to be generally applicable to optical, infrared, and radio spectra. It is capable of reading FITS-standard and many non-standard file types including CLASS spectra. It contains procedures for line fitting including gaussian and voigt profile fitters, and baseline-subtraction routines. It is capable of more advanced line fitting using arbitrary model grids. Fitting can be done both in batch mode and interactively. PySpecKit also produces publication-quality plots with TeX axis labels and annotations. It is designed to be extensible, allowing user-written reader, writer, and fitting routines to be "plugged in." It is actively under development and currently in the 'alpha' phase, with plans for a beta release.

[ascl:1109.009] CMBquick: Spectrum and Bispectrum of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB)

CMBquick is a package for Mathematica in which tools are provided to compute the spectrum and bispectrum of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). It is unavoidably slow, but the main goal is not to design a tool which can be used for systematic exploration of parameters in cosmology, but rather a toy CMB code which is transparent and easily modified. Considering this, the name chosen is nothing but a joke which refers to the widely spread and used softwares CMBFAST, CAMB or CMBeasy (ascl:1007.004), which should be used for serious and heavy first order CMB computations, and which are indeed very fast.

The package CMBquick is unavoidably slow when it comes to compute the multipoles Cls, and most of it is due to the access time for variables which in Mathematica is approximately ten times slower than in C or Fortran. CMBquick is thus approximately 10 times slower than CAMB and cannot be used for the same reasons. It uses the same method as CAMB for computing the CMB spectrum, which is based on the line of sight approach. However the integration is performed in a different gauge with different time steps and k-spacing. It benefits from the power of Mathematica on numerical resolution of stiff differential systems, and the transfer functions can be obtained with exquisite accuracy.

The purpose of CMBquick is thus twofold. First, CMBquick is a slow but precise and pedagogical, tool which can be used to explore and modify the physical content of the linear and non-linear dynamics. Second, it is a tool which can help developing templates for nonlinear computations, which could then be hard coded once their correctness is checked. The number of equations for non-linear dynamics is quite sizable and CMBquick makes it easy (but slow) to manipulate the non-linear equations, to solve them precisely, and to plot them.

[ascl:1109.015] WCSTools: Image Astrometry Toolkit

WCSTools is a package of programs and a library of utility subroutines for setting and using the world coordinate systems (WCS) in the headers of the most common astronomical image formats, FITS and IRAF .imh, to relate image pixels to sky coordinates. In addition to dealing with image WCS information, WCSTools has extensive catalog search, image header manipulation, and coordinate and time conversion tasks. This software is all written in very portable C, so it should compile and run on any computer with a C compiler.

[ascl:1110.006] STIFF: Converting Scientific FITS Images to TIFF

STIFF converts scientific FITS images to the more popular TIFF format for illustration purposes. Most FITS readers and converters do not do a proper job at converting FITS image data to 8 bits. 8-bit images stored in JPEG, PNG or TIFF files have the intensities implicitly stored in a non-linear way. Most current FITS image viewers and converters provide the user an incorrect translation of the FITS image content by simply rescaling linearly input pixel values. A first consequence is that the people working on astronomical images usually have to apply narrow intensity cuts or square-root or logarithmic intensity transformations to actually see something on their deep-sky images. A less obvious consequence is that colors obtained by combining images processed this way are not consistent across such a large range of surface brightnesses. Though with other software the user is generally afforded a choice of nonlinear transformations to apply in order to make the faint stuff stand out more clearly in the images, with the limited selection of choices provides, colors will not be accurately rendered, and some manual tweaking will be necessary. The purpose of STIFF is to produce beautiful pictures in an automatic and consistent way.

[ascl:1110.009] AAOGlimpse: Three-dimensional Data Viewer

AAOGlimpse is an experimental display program that uses OpenGL to display FITS data (and even JPEG images) as 3D surfaces that can be rotated and viewed from different angles, all in real-time. It is WCS-compliant and designed to handle three-dimensional data. Each plane in a data cube is surfaced in the same way, and the program allows the user to travel through a cube by 'peeling off' successive planes, or to look into a cube by suppressing the display of data below a given cutoff value. It can blink images and can superimpose images and contour maps from different sources using their world coordinate data. A limited socket interface allows communication with other programs.

[ascl:1110.021] Univiewer: Visualisation Program for HEALPix Maps

Univiewer is a visualisation program for HEALPix maps. It is written in C++ and uses OpenGL and the wxWidgets library for cross-platform portability. Using it you can:

- Rotate and zoom maps on the sphere in 3D
- Create high-resolution views of square patches of the map
- Change maximum and minimum values of the colourmap interactively
- Calculate the power spectrum of the full-sky map or a patch
- Display any column of a HEALPix map FITS file on the sphere

Since Univiewer uses OpenGL for 3D graphics, its performance is dependent your video card. It has been tested successfully on computers with as little as 8Mb video memory, but it is recommended to have at least 32Mb to get good performance.

In the 3D view, a HEALPix map is projected onto a ECP pixelation to create a texture which is wrapped around the sphere. In calculating the power spectrum, the spherical harmonic transforms are computed using the same ECP pixelation. This inevitably leads to some discrepancies at small scales due to repixelation effects, but they are reasonably small.

[ascl:1111.003] Saada: A Generator of Astronomical Database

Saada transforms a set of heterogeneous FITS files or VOtables of various categories (images, tables, spectra, etc.) in a powerful database deployed on the Web. Databases are located on your host and stay independent of any external server. This job doesn’t require writing code. Saada can mix data of various categories in multiple collections. Data collections can be linked each to others making relevant browsing paths and allowing data-mining oriented queries. Saada supports 4 VO services (Spectra, images, sources and TAP) . Data collections can be published immediately after the deployment of the Web interface.

[ascl:1111.014] FITSH: Software Package for Image Processing

FITSH provides a standalone environment for analysis of data acquired by imaging astronomical detectors. The package provides utilities both for the full pipeline of subsequent related data processing steps (including image calibration, astrometry, source identification, photometry, differential analysis, low-level arithmetic operations, multiple image combinations, spatial transformations and interpolations, etc.) and for aiding the interpretation of the (mainly photometric and/or astrometric) results. The package also features a consistent implementation of photometry based on image subtraction, point spread function fitting and aperture photometry and provides easy-to-use interfaces for comparisons and for picking the most suitable method for a particular problem. The utilities in the package are built on the top of the commonly used UNIX/POSIX shells (hence the name of the package), therefore both frequently used and well-documented tools for such environments can be exploited and managing massive amount of data is rather convenient.

[ascl:1112.001] Eclipse: ESO C Library for an Image Processing Software Environment

Written in ANSI C, eclipse is a library offering numerous services related to astronomical image processing: FITS data access, various image and cube loading methods, binary image handling and filtering (including convolution and morphological filters), 2-D cross-correlation, connected components, cube and image arithmetic, dead pixel detection and correction, object detection, data extraction, flat-fielding with robust fit, image generation, statistics, photometry, image-space resampling, image combination, and cube stacking. It also contains support for mathematical tools like random number generation, FFT, curve fitting, matrices, fast median computation, and point-pattern matching. The main feature of this library is its ability to handle large amounts of input data (up to 2GB in the current version) regardless of the amount of memory and swap available on the local machine. Another feature is the very high speed allowed by optimized C, making it an ideal base tool for programming efficient number-crunching applications, e.g., on parallel (Beowulf) systems.

[ascl:1112.002] Funtools: FITS Users Need Tools

Funtools is a "minimal buy-in" FITS library and utility package developed at the the High Energy Astrophysics Division of SAO. The Funtools library provides simplified access to a wide array of file types: standard astronomical FITS images and binary tables, raw arrays and binary event lists, and even tables of ASCII column data. A sophisticated region filtering library (compatible with ds9) filters images and tables using boolean operations between geometric shapes, support world coordinates, etc. Funtools also supports advanced capabilities such as optimized data searching using index files.

Because Funtools consists of a library and a set of user programs, it is most appropriately built from source. Funtools has been ported to Solaris, Linux, LinuxPPC, SGI, Alpha OSF1, Mac OSX (darwin) and Windows 98/NT/2000/XP. Once the source code tar file is retrieved, Funtools can be built and installed easily using standard commands.

[ascl:1112.006] PhAst: Display and Analysis of FITS Images

PhAst (Photometry-Astrometry) is an IDL astronomical image viewer based on the existing application ATV which displays and analyzes FITS images. It can calibrate raw images, provide astrometric solutions, and do circular aperture photometry. PhAst allows the user to load, process, and blink any number of images. Analysis packages include image calibration, photometry, and astrometry (provided through an interface with SExtractor, SCAMP, and missFITS). PhAst has been designed to generate reports for Minor Planet Center reporting.

[ascl:1112.007] FLAGCAL: FLAGging and CALlibration Pipeline for GMRT Data

FLAGging and CALlibration (FLAGCAL) is a software pipeline developed for automatic flagging and calibration of the GMRT data. This pipeline can be used for preprocessing (before importing the data in AIPS) any other interferromteric data also (given that the data file is in FITS format and contains multiple channels & scans).There are also a few GUI based tools which can be used for quick visualization of the data.

[ascl:1112.011] CMBview: A Mac OS X program for viewing HEALPix-format sky map data on a sphere

CMBview is a viewer for FITS files containing HEALPix sky maps. Sky maps are projected onto a 3d sphere which can be rotated and zoomed interactively with the mouse. Features include:

  • rendering of the field of Stokes vectors
  • ray-tracing mode in which each screen pixel is projected onto the sphere for high quality rendering
  • control over sphere lighting
  • export an arbitrarily large rendered texture
  • variety of preset colormaps

[ascl:1112.012] CORA: Emission Line Fitting with Maximum Likelihood

CORA analyzes emission line spectra with low count numbers and fits them to a line using the maximum likelihood technique. CORA uses a rigorous application of Poisson statistics. From the assumption of Poissonian noise, the software derives the probability for a model of the emission line spectrum to represent the measured spectrum. The likelihood function is used as a criterion for optimizing the parameters of the theoretical spectrum and a fixed point equation is derived allowing an efficient way to obtain line fluxes. CORA has been applied to an X-ray spectrum with the Low Energy Transmission Grating Spectrometer (LETGS) on board the Chandra observatory.

[ascl:1202.010] SPECTRE: Manipulation of single-order spectra

SPECTRE's chief purpose is the manipulation of single-order spectra, and it performs many of the tasks contained in such IRAF routines as "splot" and "rv". It is not meant to replace the much more general capabilities of IRAF, but does some functions in a manner that some might find useful. A brief list of SPECTRE tasks are: spectrum smoothing; equivalent width calculation; continuum rectification; noise spike excision; and spectrum comparison. SPECTRE was written to manipulate coude spectra, and thus is probably most useful for working on high dispersion spectra. Echelle spectra can be gathered from various observatories, reduced to singly-dimensioned spectra using IRAF, then written out as FITS files, thus becoming accessible to SPECTRE. Three different spectra may be manipulated and displayed simultaneously. SPECTRE, written in standard FORTRAN77, can be used only with the SM graphics package.

[ascl:1202.013] SME: Spectroscopy Made Easy

Spectroscopy Made Easy (SME) is IDL software and a compiled external library that fits an observed high-resolution stellar spectrum with a synthetic spectrum to determine stellar parameters. The SME external library is available for Mac, Linux, and Windows systems. Atomic and molecular line data formatted for SME may be obtained from VALD. SME can solve for empirical log(gf) and damping parameters, using an observed spectrum of a star (usually the Sun) as a constraint.

[ascl:1203.010] Youpi: YOUr processing PIpeline

Youpi is a portable, easy to use web application providing high level functionalities to perform data reduction on scientific FITS images. Built on top of various open source reduction tools released to the community by TERAPIX (http://terapix.iap.fr), Youpi can help organize data, manage processing jobs on a computer cluster in real time (using Condor) and facilitate teamwork by allowing fine-grain sharing of results and data. Youpi is modular and comes with plugins which perform, from within a browser, various processing tasks such as evaluating the quality of incoming images (using the QualityFITS software package), computing astrometric and photometric solutions (using SCAMP), resampling and co-adding FITS images (using SWarp) and extracting sources and building source catalogues from astronomical images (using SExtractor). Youpi is useful for small to medium-sized data reduction projects; it is free and is published under the GNU General Public License.

[ascl:1203.012] Astrometrica: Astrometric data reduction of CCD images

Astrometrica is an interactive software tool for scientific grade astrometric data reduction of CCD images. The current version of the software is for the Windows 32bit operating system family. Astrometrica reads FITS (8, 16 and 32 bit integer files) and SBIG image files. The size of the images is limited only by available memory. It also offers automatic image calibration (Dark Frame and Flat Field correction), automatic reference star identification, automatic moving object detection and identification, and access to new-generation star catalogs (PPMXL, UCAC 3 and CMC-14), in addition to online help and other features. Astrometrica is shareware, available for use for a limited period of time (100 days) for free; special arrangements can be made for educational projects.

[ascl:1204.012] VirGO: A Visual Browser for the ESO Science Archive Facility

VirGO is the next generation Visual Browser for the ESO Science Archive Facility developed by the Virtual Observatory (VO) Systems Department. It is a plug-in for the popular open source software Stellarium adding capabilities for browsing professional astronomical data. VirGO gives astronomers the possibility to easily discover and select data from millions of observations in a new visual and intuitive way. Its main feature is to perform real-time access and graphical display of a large number of observations by showing instrumental footprints and image previews, and to allow their selection and filtering for subsequent download from the ESO SAF web interface. It also allows the loading of external FITS files or VOTables, the superimposition of Digitized Sky Survey (DSS) background images, and the visualization of the sky in a `real life' mode as seen from the main ESO sites. All data interfaces are based on Virtual Observatory standards which allow access to images and spectra from external data centers, and interaction with the ESO SAF web interface or any other VO applications supporting the PLASTIC messaging system.

[ascl:1204.015] PROFIT: Emission-line PROfile FITting routine

The PROFIT is an IDL routine to do automated fitting of emission-line profiles by Gaussian curves or Gauss-Hermite series optimized for use in Integral Field and Fabry-Perot data cubes. As output PROFIT gives two-dimensional FITS files for the emission-line flux distribution, centroid velocity, velocity dispersion and higher order Gauss-Hermite moments (h3 and h4).

[ascl:1204.016] ASCfit: Automatic Stellar Coordinate Fitting Package

A modular software package for automatically fitting astrometric world coordinates (WCS) onto raw optical or infrared FITS images. Image stars are identified with stars in a reference catalog (USNO-A2 or 2MASS), and coordinates derived as a simple linear transformation from (X,Y) pixels to (RA,DEC) to the accuracy level of the reference catalog used. The package works with both optical and infrared images, at sidereal and non-sidereal tracking rates.

[ascl:1205.005] Fv: Interactive FITS file editor

Fv is an easy-to-use graphical program for viewing and editing any FITS format image or table. The Fv software is small, completely self-contained and runs on Windows PCs, most Unix platforms and Mac OS-X. Fv also provides a portal into the Hera data analysis service from the HEASARC.

[ascl:1205.009] ARES: Automatic Routine for line Equivalent widths in stellar Spectra

ARES was developed for the measurement of Equivalent Width of absortion lines in stellar spectra; it can also be used to determine fundamental spectroscopic stellar parameters.The code reads a 1D FITS spectra and fits the requested lines in order to calculate the Equivalent width. The code is written in C++ based on the standard method of determining EWs. It automates the manual procedure that one normally carries out when using interactive routines such as the splot routine implemented in IRAF.

[ascl:1206.002] FITS Liberator: Image processing software

The ESA/ESO/NASA FITS Liberator makes it possible to process and edit astronomical science data in the FITS format to produce stunning images of the universe. Formerly a plugin for Adobe Photoshop, the current version of FITS Liberator is a stand-alone application and no longer requires Photoshop. This image processing software makes it possible to create color images using raw observations from a range of telescopes; the FITS Liberator continues to support the FITS and PDS formats, preferred by astronomers and planetary scientists respectively, which enables data to be processed from a wide range of telescopes and planetary probes, including ESO’s Very Large Telescope, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, ESA’s XMM–Newton Telescope and Cassini–Huygens or Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

[ascl:1206.013] ImageJ: Image processing and analysis in Java

ImageJ is a public domain Java image processing program inspired by NIH Image. It can display, edit, analyze, process, save and print 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit images. It can read many image formats including TIFF, GIF, JPEG, BMP, DICOM, FITS and "raw". It supports "stacks", a series of images that share a single window. It is multithreaded, so time-consuming operations such as image file reading can be performed in parallel with other operations.

[ascl:1206.014] ImageHealth: Quality Assurance for Large FITS Images

ImageHealth (IH) is a c program that makes use of standard CFITSIO routines to examine, in an automated fashion, .FITS images with any number of extensions, find objects within those images, and determine basic parameters of those images (stellar flux, background counts, FWHM, and ellipticity, along with sky background counts) in order to provide a snapshot of the quality of those images. A variety of python wrappers have also been written to test large numbers of such images and compare the results of ImageHealth to other image analysis programs, such as SourceExtractor. Additional IH-related tools will be made available in the future.

[ascl:1207.009] PyFITS: Python FITS Module

PyFITS provides an interface to FITS formatted files in the Python scripting language and PyRAF, the Python-based interface to IRAF. It is useful both for interactive data analysis and for writing analysis scripts in Python using FITS files as either input or output. PyFITS is a development project of the Science Software Branch at the Space Telescope Science Institute.

PyFITS has been deprecated. Please see Astropy.

[ascl:1208.017] APLpy: Astronomical Plotting Library in Python

APLpy (the Astronomical Plotting Library in Python) is a Python module for producing publication-quality plots of astronomical imaging data in FITS format. The module uses Matplotlib, a powerful and interactive plotting package. It is capable of creating output files in several graphical formats, including EPS, PDF, PS, PNG, and SVG. Plots can be made interactively or by using scripts, and can generate co-aligned FITS cubes to make three-color RGB images. It also offers different overlay capabilities, including contour sets, markers with customizable symbols, and coordinate grids, and a range of other useful features.

[ascl:1208.020] ParselTongue: AIPS Python Interface

ParselTongue is a Python interface to classic AIPS, Obit and possibly other task-based data reduction packages. It serves as the software infrastructure for some of the ALBUS implementation. It allows you to run AIPS tasks, and access AIPS headers and extension tables from Python. There is also support for running Obit tasks and accessing data in FITS files. Full access to the visibilities in AIPS UV data is also available.

[ascl:1209.010] MeqTrees: Software package for implementing Measurement Equations

MeqTrees is a software package for implementing Measurement Equations. This makes it uniquely suited for simulation and calibration of radioastronomical data, especially that involving new radiotelescopes and observational regimes. MeqTrees is implemented as a Python-based front-end called the meqbrowser, and an efficient (C++-based) computational back-end called the meqserver. Numerical models are defined on the front-end via a Python-based Tree Definition Language (TDL), then rapidly executed on the back-end. The use of TDL facilitates an extremely short turn-around time for experimentation with new ideas. This is also helped by unprecedented visualization capabilities for all final and intermediate results. A flexible data model and a number of important optimizations in the back-end ensures that the numerical performance is comparable to that of hand-written code.

MeqTrees includes a highly capable FITS viewer and sky model manager called Tigger, which can also work as a standalone tool.

[ascl:1210.003] GOSSIP: SED fitting code

GOSSIP fits the electro-magnetic emission of an object (the SED, Spectral Energy Distribution) against synthetic models to find the simulated one that best reproduces the observed data. It builds-up the observed SED of an object (or a large sample of objects) combining magnitudes in different bands and eventually a spectrum; then it performs a chi-square minimization fitting procedure versus a set of synthetic models. The fitting results are used to estimate a number of physical parameters like the Star Formation History, absolute magnitudes, stellar mass and their Probability Distribution Functions.

[ascl:1210.016] Specview: 1-D spectral visualization and analysis of astronomical spectrograms

Specview is a tool for 1-D spectral visualization and analysis of astronomical spectrograms. Written in Java, it is capable of reading all the Hubble Space Telescope spectral data formats as well as data from several other instruments (such as IUE, FUSE, ISO, FORS and SDSS), preview spectra from MAST, and data from generic FITS and ASCII tables. It can read data from Virtual Observatory servers, and read and write spectrogram data in Virtual Observatory SED format. It can also read files in the SPC Galactic format used in the chemistry field. Once ingested, data can be plotted and examined with a large selection of custom settings. Specview supports instrument-specific data quality handling, flexible spectral units conversions, custom plotting attributes, plot annotations, tiled plots, hardcopy to JPEG files and PostScript file or printer, etc. Specview can be used to build wide-band SEDs, overplotting or combining data from the same astronomical source taken with different instruments and/or spectral bands. Data can be further processed with averaging, splicing, detrending, and Fourier filtering tools. Specview has a spectral model fitting capability that enables the user to work with multi-component models (including user-defined models) and fit models to data.

[ascl:1210.019] QFitsView: FITS file viewer

QFitsView is a FITS file viewer that can display one, two, and three-dimensional FITS files. It has three modes of operation, depending of what kind of data is being displayed. One-dimensional data are shown in an x-y plot. Two-dimensional images are shown in the main window. Three-dimensional data cubes can be displayed in a variety of ways, with the third dimension shown as a x-y plot at the bottom of the image display. QFitsView was written in C++ and uses the Qt widget library, which makes it available for all major platforms: Windows, MAC OS X, and many Unix variants.

[ascl:1210.020] GASGANO: Data File Organizer

GASGANO is a GUI software tool for managing and viewing data files produced by VLT Control System (VCS) and the Data Flow System (DFS). It is developed and maintained by ESO to help its user community manage and organize astronomical data observed and produced by all VLT compliant telescopes in a systematic way. The software understands FITS, PAF, and ASCII files, and Reduction Blocks, and can group, sort, classify, filter, and search data in addition to allowing the user to browse, view, and manage them.

[ascl:1210.031] RVLIN: Fitting Keplerian curves to radial velocity data

The RVLIN package for IDL is a set of routines that quickly fits an arbitrary number of Keplerian curves to radial velocity data. It can handle data from multiple telescopes (i.e. it solves for the offset), constraints on P, e, and time of peri passage, and can incorporate transit timing data. The code handles fixed periods and circular orbits in combination and transit time constraints, including for multiple transiting planets.

[ascl:1211.001] S2LET: Fast wavelet analysis on the sphere

S2LET provides high performance routines for fast wavelet analysis of signals on the sphere. It uses the SSHT code (ascl:2207.034) built on the MW sampling theorem to perform exact spherical harmonic transforms on the sphere. The resulting wavelet transform implemented in S2LET is theoretically exact, i.e. a band-limited signal can be recovered from its wavelet coefficients exactly and the wavelet coefficients capture all the information. S2LET also supports the HEALPix sampling scheme, in which case the transforms are not theoretically exact but achieve good numerical accuracy. The core routines of S2LET are written in C and have interfaces in Matlab, IDL and Java. Real signals can be written to and read from FITS files and plotted as Mollweide projections.

[ascl:1212.007] WOLF: FITS file processor

WOLF processes FITS files and generates photometry files, annotated JPGs, opacity maps, background, transient detection and luminance changes detection. This software was used to process data for the Night Sky Live project.

[ascl:1301.001] PSFEx: Point Spread Function Extractor

PSFEx (“PSF Extractor”) extracts models of the Point Spread Function (PSF) from FITS images processed with SExtractor and measures the quality of images. The generated PSF models can be used for model-fitting photometry or morphological analyses.

[ascl:1302.001] MARX: Model of AXAF Response to X-rays

MARX (Model of AXAF Response to X-rays) is a suite of programs designed to enable the user to simulate the on-orbit performance of the Chandra satellite. MARX provides a detailed ray-trace simulation of how Chandra responds to a variety of astrophysical sources and can generate standard FITS events files and images as output. It contains models for the HRMA mirror system onboard Chandra as well as the HETG and LETG gratings and all focal plane detectors.

[ascl:1302.007] GRID-core: Gravitational Potential Identification of Cores

GRID-core is a core-finding method using the contours of the local gravitational potential to identify core boundaries. The GRID-core method applied to 2D surface density and 3D volume density are in good agreement for bound cores. We have implemented a version of the GRID-core algorithm in IDL, suitable for core-finding in observed maps. The required input is a two-dimensional FITS file containing a map of the column density in a region of a cloud.

[ascl:1302.010] ICORE: Image Co-addition with Optional Resolution Enhancement

ICORE is a command-line driven co-addition, mosaicking, and resolution enhancement (HiRes) tool for creating science quality products from image data in FITS format and with World Coordinate System information following the FITS-WCS standard. It includes preparatory steps such as image background matching, photometric gain-matching, and pixel-outlier rejection. Co-addition and/or HiRes'ing can be performed in either the inertial WCS or in the rest frame of a moving object. Three interpolation methods are supported: overlap-area weighting, drizzle, and weighting by the detector Point Response Function (PRF). The latter enables the creation of matched-filtered products for optimal point-source detection, but most importantly allows for resolution enhancement using a spatially-dependent deconvolution method. This is a variant of the classic Richardson-Lucy algorithm with the added benefit to simultaneously register and co-add multiple images to optimize signal-to-noise and sampling of the instrumental PSF. It can assume real (or otherwise "flat") image priors, mitigate "ringing" artifacts, and assess the quality of image solutions using statistically-motivated convergence criteria. Uncertainties are also estimated and internally validated for all products. The software supports multithreading that can be configured for different architectures. Numerous example scripts are included (with test data) to co-add and/or HiRes image data from Spitzer-IRAC/MIPS, WISE, and Herschel-SPIRE.

[ascl:1302.014] SYNMAG Photometry: Catalog-level Matched Colors of Extended Sources

SYNMAG is a tool for producing synthetic aperture magnitudes to enable fast matched photometry at the catalog level without reprocessing imaging data. Aperture magnitudes are the most widely tabulated flux measurements in survey catalogs; obtaining reliable, matched photometry for galaxies imaged by different observatories represents a key challenge in the era of wide-field surveys spanning more than several hundred square degrees. Methods such as flux fitting, profile fitting, and PSF homogenization followed by matched-aperture photometry are all computationally expensive. An alternative solution called "synthetic aperture photometry" exploits galaxy profile fits in one band to efficiently model the observed, point-spread-function-convolved light profile in other bands and predict the flux in arbitrarily sized apertures.

[ascl:1303.009] MAGIX: Modeling and Analysis Generic Interface for eXternal numerical codes

MAGIX provides an interface between existing codes and an iterating engine that minimizes deviations of the model results from available observational data; it constrains the values of the model parameters and provides corresponding error estimates. Many models (and, in principle, not only astrophysical models) can be plugged into MAGIX to explore their parameter space and find the set of parameter values that best fits observational/experimental data. MAGIX complies with the data structures and reduction tools of Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA), but can be used with other astronomical and with non-astronomical data.

[ascl:1303.017] CADRE: CArma Data REduction pipeline

CADRE, the Combined Array for Millimeter-wave Astronomy (CARMA) data reduction pipeline, gives investigators a first look at a fully reduced set of their data. It runs automatically on all data produced by the telescope as they arrive in the data archive. The pipeline is written in python and uses python wrappers for MIRIAD subroutines for direct access to the data. It applies passband, gain and flux calibration to the data sets and produces a set of continuum and spectral line maps in both MIRIAD and FITS format.

[ascl:1303.019] GBTIDL: Reduction and Analysis of GBT Spectral Line Data

GBTIDL is an interactive package for reduction and analysis of spectral line data taken with the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT). The package, written entirely in IDL, consists of straightforward yet flexible calibration, averaging, and analysis procedures (the "GUIDE layer") modeled after the UniPOPS and CLASS data reduction philosophies, a customized plotter with many built-in visualization features, and Data I/O and toolbox functionality that can be used for more advanced tasks. GBTIDL makes use of data structures which can also be used to store intermediate results. The package consumes and produces data in GBT SDFITS format. GBTIDL can be run online and have access to the most recent data coming off the telescope, or can be run offline on preprocessed SDFITS files.

[ascl:1303.020] Ginga: Flexible FITS viewer

Ginga is a viewer for astronomical data FITS (Flexible Image Transport System) files; the viewer centers around a FITS display widget which supports zooming and panning, color and intensity mapping, a choice of several automatic cut levels algorithms and canvases for plotting scalable geometric forms. In addition to this widget, the FITS viewer provides a flexible plugin framework for extending the viewer with many different features. A fairly complete set of "standard" plugins are provided for expected features of a modern viewer: panning and zooming windows, star catalog access, cuts, star pick/fwhm, thumbnails, and others. This viewer was written by software engineers at Subaru Telescope, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, and is in use at that facility.

[ascl:1304.002] Astropy: Community Python library for astronomy

Astropy provides a common framework, core package of code, and affiliated packages for astronomy in Python. Development is actively ongoing, with major packages such as PyFITS, PyWCS, vo, and asciitable already merged in. Astropy is intended to contain much of the core functionality and some common tools needed for performing astronomy and astrophysics with Python.

[ascl:1307.008] Obit: Radio Astronomy Data Handling

Obit is a group of software packages for handling radio astronomy data, especially interferometric and single dish OTF imaging. Obit is primarily an environment in which new data processing algorithms can be developed and tested but which can also be used for production processing of a certain range of scientific problems. The package supports both prepackaged, compiled tasks and a python interface to the major class functionality to allow rapid prototyping using python scripts; it allows access to multiple disk--resident data formats, in particular access to either AIPS disk data or FITS files. Obit applications are interoperable with Classic AIPS and the ObitTalk python interface gives access to AIPS tasks as well as Obit libraries and tasks.

[ascl:1307.016] orbfit: Orbit fitting software

Orbfit determines positions and orbital elements, and associated uncertainties, of outer solar system planets. The orbit-fitting procedure is greatly streamlined compared with traditional methods because acceleration can be treated as a perturbation to the inertial motion of the body. Orbfit quickly and accurately calculates orbital elements and ephemerides and their associated uncertainties for targets ≳ 10 AU from the Sun and produces positional estimates and uncertainty ellipses even in the face of the substantial degeneracies of short-arc orbit fits; the sole a priori assumption is that the orbit should be bound or nearly so.

[ascl:1307.019] PURIFY: Tools for radio-interferometric imaging

PURIFY is a collection of routines written in C that implements different tools for radio-interferometric imaging including file handling (for both visibilities and fits files), implementation of the measurement operator and set-up of the different optimization problems used for image deconvolution. The code calls the generic Sparse OPTimization (SOPT) (ascl:1307.020) package to solve the imaging optimization problems.

[ascl:1308.015] Ceph_code: Cepheid light-curves fitting

Ceph_code fits multi-band Cepheid light-curves using templates derived from OGLE observations. The templates include short period stars (<10 day) and overtone stars.

[ascl:1309.001] AstroImageJ: ImageJ for Astronomy

AstroImageJ is generic ImageJ (ascl:1206.013) with customizations to the base code and a packaged set of astronomy specific plugins. It reads and writes FITS images with standard headers, displays astronomical coordinates for images with WCS, supports photometry for developing color-magnitude data, offers flat field, scaled dark, and non-linearity processing, and includes tools for precision photometry that can be used during real-time data acquisition.

[ascl:1309.006] VOPlot: Toolkit for Scientific Discovery using VOTables

VOPlot is a tool for visualizing astronomical data. It was developed in Java and acts on data available in VOTABLE, ASCII and FITS formats. VOPlot is available as a stand alone version, which is to be installed on the user's machine, or as a web-based version fully integrated with the VizieR database.

[ascl:1310.005] ASPRO 2: Astronomical Software to PRepare Observations

ASPRO 2 (Astronomical Software to PRepare Observations) is an observation preparation tool for interferometric observations with the VLTI or other interferometers such as CHARA and SUSI. It is a Java standalone program that provides a dynamic graphical interface to simulate the projected baseline evolution during observations (super-synthesis) and derive visibilities for targets (i.e., single star, binaries, user defined FITS image). It offers other useful functions such as the ability to load and save your observation settings and generate Observing Blocks.

[ascl:1310.008] SPECX: Spectral Line Data Reduction Package

SPECX is a general purpose line data reduction system. It can read and write FITS data cubes but has specialist support for the GSD format data from the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope. It includes commands to store and retrieve intermediate spectra in storage registers and perform the fitting and removal of polynomial, harmonic and Gaussian baselines.

SPECX can filter and edit spectra and list and display spectra on a graphics terminal. It is able to perform Fourier transform and power spectrum calculations, process up to eight spectra (quadrants) simultaneously with either the same or different center, and assemble a number of reduced individual spectra into a map file and contour or greyscale any plane or planes of the resulting cube.

Two versions of SPECX are distributed. Version 6.x is the VMS and Unix version and is distributed as part of the Starlink software collection. Version 7.x is a complete rewrite of SPECX distributed for Windows.

[ascl:1311.003] AstroAsciiData: ASCII table Python module

ASCII tables continue to be one of the most popular and widely used data exchange formats in astronomy. AstroAsciiData, written in Python, imports all reasonably well-formed ASCII tables. It retains formatting of data values, allows column-first access, supports SExtractor style headings, performs column sorting, and exports data to other formats, including FITS, Numpy/Numarray, and LaTeX table format. It also offers interchangeable comment character, column delimiter and null value.

[ascl:1311.006] CIAO: Chandra Interactive Analysis of Observations

CIAO is a data analysis system written for the needs of users of the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Because Chandra data is 4-dimensional (2 spatial, time, energy) and each dimension has many independent elements, CIAO was built to handle N-dimensional data without concern about which particular axes were being analyzed. Apart from a few Chandra instrument tools, CIAO is mission independent. CIAO tools read and write several formats, including FITS images and tables (which includes event files) and IRAF imh files. CIAO is a powerful system for the analysis of many types of data.

[ascl:1312.006] LTL: The Little Template Library

LTL provides dynamic arrays of up to 7-dimensions, subarrays and slicing, support for fixed-size vectors and matrices including basic linear algebra operations, expression templates-based evaluation, and I/O facilities for ascii and FITS format files. Utility classes for command-line processing and configuration-file processing are provided as well.

[ascl:1312.008] BAMBI: Blind Accelerated Multimodal Bayesian Inference

BAMBI (Blind Accelerated Multimodal Bayesian Inference) is a Bayesian inference engine that combines the benefits of SkyNet (ascl:1312.007) with MultiNest (ascl:1109.006). It operated by simultaneously performing Bayesian inference using MultiNest and learning the likelihood function using SkyNet. Once SkyNet has learnt the likelihood to sufficient accuracy, inference finishes almost instantaneously.

[ascl:1402.001] Vissage: ALMA VO Desktop Viewer

Vissage (VISualisation Software for Astronomical Gigantic data cubEs) is a FITS browser primarily targeting FITS data cubes obtained from ALMA. Vissage offers basic functionality for viewing three-dimensional data cubes, integrated intensity map, flipbook, channel map, and P-V diagram. It has several color sets and color scales available, offers panning and zooming, and can connect with the ALMA WebQL system and the JVO Subaru Image Cutout Service.

[ascl:1402.002] Glue: Linked data visualizations across multiple files

Glue, written in Python, links visualizations of scientific datasets across many files, allowing for interactive, linked statistical graphics of multiple files. It supports many file formats including common image formats (jpg, tiff, png), ASCII tables, astronomical image and table formats (FITS, VOT, IPAC), and HDF5. Custom data loaders can also be easily added. Glue is highly scriptable and extendable.

[ascl:1402.006] Munipack: General astronomical image processing software

Munipack provides easy-to-use tools for all astronomical astrometry and photometry, access to Virtual Observatory as well as FITS files operations and a simple user interface along with a powerful processing engine. Its many features include a FITS images viewer that allows for basic (astronomical) operations with frames, advanced image processor supporting an infinite dynamic range and advanced color management, and astrometric calibration of images. The astrometry module uses robust statistical estimators and algorithms. The photometry module provides the classical method detection of stars and implements the aperture photometry, calibrated on the basis of photon statistics, and allows for the automatic detection and aperture photometry of stars; calibration on absolute fluxes is possible. The software also provides a standard way to correct for all the bias, dark and flat-field frames, and many other features.

[ascl:1402.007] SPLAT: Spectral Analysis Tool

SPLAT is a graphical tool for displaying, comparing, modifying and analyzing astronomical spectra stored in NDF, FITS and TEXT files as well as in NDX format. It can read in many spectra at the same time and then display these as line plots. Display windows can show one or several spectra at the same time and can be interactively zoomed and scrolled, centered on specific wavelengths, provide continuous coordinate readout, produce printable hardcopy and be configured in many ways. Analysis facilities include the fitting of a polynomial to selected parts of a spectrum, the fitting of Gaussian, Lorentzian and Voigt profiles to emission and absorption lines and the filtering of spectra using average, median and line-shape window functions as well as wavelet denoising. SPLAT also supports a full range of coordinate systems for spectra, which allows coordinates to be displayed and aligned in many different coordinate systems (wavelength, frequency, energy, velocity) and transformed between these and different standards of rest (topocentric, heliocentric, dynamic and kinematic local standards of rest, etc). SPLAT is distributed as part of the Starlink (ascl:1110.012) software collection.

[ascl:1402.009] GalSim: Modular galaxy image simulation toolkit

GalSim is a fast, modular software package for simulation of astronomical images. Though its primary purpose is for tests of weak lensing analysis methods, it can be used for other purposes. GalSim allows galaxies and PSFs to be represented in a variety of ways, and can apply shear, magnification, dilation, or rotation to a galaxy profile including lensing-based models from a power spectrum or NFW halo profile. It can write images in regular FITS files, FITS data cubes, or multi-extension FITS files. It can also compress the output files using various compressions including gzip, bzip2, and rice. The user interface is in python or via configuration scripts, and the computations are done in C++ for speed.

[ascl:1402.010] CPL: Common Pipeline Library

The Common Pipeline Library (CPL) is a set of ISO-C libraries that provide a comprehensive, efficient and robust software toolkit to create automated astronomical data reduction pipelines. Though initially developed as a standardized way to build VLT instrument pipelines, the CPL may be more generally applied to any similar application. The code also provides a variety of general purpose image- and signal-processing functions, making it an excellent framework for the creation of more generic data handling packages. The CPL handles low-level data types (images, tables, matrices, strings, property lists, etc.) and medium-level data access methods (a simple data abstraction layer for FITS files). It also provides table organization and manipulation, keyword/value handling and management, and support for dynamic loading of recipe modules using programs such as EsoRex (ascl:1504.003).

[ascl:1402.021] PyGFit: Python Galaxy Fitter

PyGFit measures PSF-matched photometry from images with disparate pixel scales and PSF sizes; its primary purpose is to extract robust spectral energy distributions (SEDs) from crowded images. It fits blended sources in crowded, low resolution images with models generated from a higher resolution image, thus minimizing the impact of crowding and also yielding consistently measured fluxes in different filters which minimizes systematic uncertainty in the final SEDs.

[ascl:1403.013] BAOlab: Image processing program

BAOlab is an image processing package written in C that should run on nearly any UNIX system with just the standard C libraries. It reads and writes images in standard FITS format; 16- and 32-bit integer as well as 32-bit floating-point formats are supported. Multi-extension FITS files are currently not supported. Among its tools are ishape for size measurements of compact sources, mksynth for generating synthetic images consisting of a background signal including Poisson noise and a number of pointlike sources, imconvol for convolving two images (a “source” and a “kernel”) with each other using fast fourier transforms (FFTs) and storing the output as a new image, and kfit2d for fitting a two-dimensional King model to an image.

[ascl:1403.017] MGE_FIT_SECTORS: Multi-Gaussian Expansion fits to galaxy images

MGE_FIT_SECTORS performs Multi-Gaussian Expansion (MGE) fits to galaxy images. The MGE parameterizations are useful in the construction of realistic dynamical models of galaxies, PSF deconvolution of images, the correction and estimation of dust absorption effects, and galaxy photometry. The algorithm is well suited for use with multiple-resolution images (e.g. Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and ground-based images).

[ascl:1404.004] SAS: Science Analysis System for XMM-Newton observatory

The Science Analysis System (SAS) is an extensive suite of software tasks developed to process the data collected by the XMM-Newton Observatory. The SAS extracts standard (spectra, light curves) and/or customized science products, and allows reproductions of the reduction pipelines run to get the PPS products from the ODFs files. SAS includes a powerful and extensive suite of FITS file manipulation packages based on the Data Access Layer library.

[ascl:1404.016] AST: World Coordinate Systems in Astronomy

The AST library provides a comprehensive range of facilities for attaching world coordinate systems to astronomical data, for retrieving and interpreting that information in a variety of formats, including FITS-WCS, and for generating graphical output based on it. Core projection algorithms are provided by WCSLIB (ascl:1108.003) and astrometry is provided by the PAL (ascl:1606.002) and SOFA (ascl:1403.026) libraries. AST bindings are available in Python (pyast), Java (JNIAST) and Perl (Starlink::AST). AST is used as the plotting and astrometry library in DS9 and GAIA, and is distributed separately and as part of the Starlink software collection.

[ascl:1405.015] CURSA: Catalog and Table Manipulation Applications

The CURSA package manipulates astronomical catalogs and similar tabular datasets. It provides facilities for browsing or examining catalogs; selecting subsets from a catalog; sorting and copying catalogs; pairing two catalogs; converting catalog coordinates between some celestial coordinate systems; and plotting finding charts and photometric calibration. It can also extract subsets from a catalog in a format suitable for plotting using other Starlink packages such as PONGO. CURSA can access catalogs held in the popular FITS table format, the Tab-Separated Table (TST) format or the Small Text List (STL) format. Catalogs in the STL and TST formats are simple ASCII text files. CURSA also includes some facilities for accessing remote on-line catalogs via the Internet. It is part of the Starlink software collection (ascl:1110.012).

[ascl:1407.009] Period04: Statistical analysis of large astronomical time series

Period04 statistically analyzes large astronomical time series containing gaps. It calculates formal uncertainties, can extract the individual frequencies from the multiperiodic content of time series, and provides a flexible interface to perform multiple-frequency fits with a combination of least-squares fitting and the discrete Fourier transform algorithm. Period04, written in Java/C++, supports the SAMP communication protocol to provide interoperability with other applications of the Virtual Observatory. It is a reworked and extended version of Period98 (Sperl 1998) and PERIOD/PERDET (Breger 1990).

[ascl:1408.004] HEAsoft: Unified Release of FTOOLS and XANADU

HEASOFT combines XANADU, high-level, multi-mission software for X-ray astronomical spectral, timing, and imaging data analysis tasks, and FTOOLS (ascl:9912.002), general and mission-specific software to manipulate FITS files, into one package. It also contains contains the NuSTAR subpackage of tasks, NuSTAR Data Analysis Software (NuSTARDAS). The source code for the software can be downloaded; precompiled executables for the most widely used computer platforms are also available for download. As an additional service, HEAsoft tasks can be directly from a web browser via WebHera.

[ascl:1408.015] VPFIT: Voigt profile fitting program

The VPFIT program fits multiple Voigt profiles (convolved with the instrument profiles) to spectroscopic data that is in FITS or an ASCII file. It requires CFITSIO (ascl:1010.001) and PGPLOT (ascl:1103.002); the tarball includes RDGEN (ascl:1408.017), which can be used with VPFIT to set up the fits, fit the profiles, and examine the result in interactive mode for setting up initial guesses; vpguess (ascl:1408.016) can also be used to set up an initial file.

[ascl:1408.016] vpguess: Fitting multiple Voigt profiles to spectroscopic data

vpguess facilitates the fitting of multiple Voigt profiles to spectroscopic data. It is a graphical interface to VPFIT (ascl:1408.015). Originally meant to simplify the process of setting up first guesses for a subsequent fit with VPFIT, it has developed into a full interface to VPFIT. It may also be used independently of VPFIT for displaying data, playing around with data and models, "chi-by-eye" fits, displaying the result of a proper fit, pretty plots, etc. vpguess is written in C, and the graphics are based on PGPLOT (ascl:1103.002).

[ascl:1408.017] RDGEN: Routines for data handling, display, and adjusting

RDGEN is a collection of routines for data handling, display, and adjusting, with a facility which helps to set up files for using with VPFIT (ascl:1408.015); it is included in the VPFIT distribution file. It is useful for setting region boundaries and initial guesses for VPFIT, for displaying the accumulated results, for examining by eye particular redshift systems and fits to them, testing that the error array is a true reflection of the rms scatter in the data, comparing spectra and generally examining and even modifying the data.

[ascl:1409.011] rmfit: Forward-folding spectral analysis software

Rmfit uses a forward-folding technique to obtain the best-fit parameters for a chosen model given user-selected source and background time intervals from data files containing observed count rates and a corresponding detector response matrix. rmfit displays lightcurves and spectra using a graphical interface that enables user-defined integrated or time-resolved spectral fits and binning in either time or energy. Originally developed for the analysis of BATSE Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB) spectroscopy, rmfit is a tool for the spectroscopy of transient sources; it accommodates the Fermi GBM and LAT data and Swift BAT.

[ascl:1411.027] BKGE: Fermi-LAT Background Estimator

The Fermi-LAT Background Estimator (BKGE) is a publicly available open-source tool that can estimate the expected background of the Fermi-LAT for any observational conguration and duration. It produces results in the form of text files, ROOT files, gtlike source-model files (for LAT maximum likelihood analyses), and PHA I/II FITS files (for RMFit/XSpec spectral fitting analyses). Its core is written in C++ and its user interface in Python.

[ascl:1409.013] IM3SHAPE: Maximum likelihood galaxy shear measurement code for cosmic gravitational lensing

Im3shape forward-fits a galaxy model to each data image it is supplied with and reports the parameters of the best fitting model, including the ellipticity components. It uses the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) to render images of convolved galaxy profiles, calculates the maximum likelihood parameter values, and corrects for noise bias. IM3SHAPE is a modular C code with a significant amount of Python glue code to enable setting up new models and their options automatically.

[ascl:1411.009] iDealCam: Interactive Data Reduction and Analysis for CanariCam

iDealCam is an IDL GUI toolkit for processing multi-extension FITS file produced by CanariCam, the facility mid-IR instrument of Gran Telescopio CANARIAS (GTC). iDealCam is optimized for CanariCam data, but is also compatible with data generated by other instruments using similar detectors and data format (e.g., Michelle and T-ReCS at Gemini). iDealCam provides essential capabilities to examine, reduce, and analyze data obtained in the standard imaging or polarimetric imaging mode of CanariCam.

[ascl:1411.005] HOPE: Just-in-time Python compiler for astrophysical computations

HOPE is a specialized Python just-in-time (JIT) compiler designed for numerical astrophysical applications. HOPE focuses on a subset of the language and is able to translate Python code into C++ while performing numerical optimization on mathematical expressions at runtime. To enable the JIT compilation, the user only needs to add a decorator to the function definition. By using HOPE, the user benefits from being able to write common numerical code in Python while getting the performance of compiled implementation.

[ascl:1411.006] RC3 mosaicking pipeline: Creating mosaics for the RC3 Catalogue

The RC3 mosaicking pipeline creates color composite images and scientifically-calibrated FITS mosaics in all SDSS imaging bands for all the RC3 galaxies that lie within the survey’s footprint and on photographic plates taken by the Digitized Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (DPOSS) for the B, R, IR bands. The pipeline uses SExtractor (ascl:1010.064) for extraction and STIFF (ascl:1110.006) to generating color images. The mosaicking program uses a recursive algorithm for positional update first to correct the positional inaccuracy inherent in the RC3 catalog, then conducts the mosaicking procedure using the Astropy (ascl:1304.002) wrapper to IPAC's Montage (ascl:1010.036) software. The program is generalized into a pipeline that can be easily extended to future survey data or other source catalogs; an online interface is available at
http://lcdm.astro.illinois.edu/data/rc3/search.html.

[ascl:1411.007] segueSelect: SDSS/SEGUE selection function modelling

The Python package segueSelect automatically models the SDSS/SEGUE selection fraction -- the fraction of stars with good spectra -- as a continuous function of apparent magnitude for each plate. The selection function can be determined for any desired sample cuts in signal-to-noise ratio, u-g, r-i, and E(B-V). The package requires Pyfits (ascl:1207.009) and, for coordinate transformations, galpy (ascl:1411.008). It can calculate the KS probability that the spectropscopic sample was drawn from the underlying photometric sample with the model selection function, plot the cumulative distribution function in r-band apparent magnitude of the spectroscopic sample (red) and the photometric sample+selection-function-model for this plate, and, if galpy is installed, can transform velocities into the Galactic coordinate frame. The code can also determine the selection function for SEGUE K stars.

[ascl:1905.012] Fitsverify: FITS file format-verification tool

Fitsverify rigorously checks whether a FITS (Flexible Image Transport System) data file conforms to the requirements defined in Version 3.0 of the FITS Standard document; it is a standalone version of the ftverify and fverify tasks that are distributed as part of the ftools (ascl:9912.002) software package. The source code must be compiled and linked with the CFITSIO (ascl:1010.001) library. An interactive web is also available that can verify the format of any FITS data file on a local computer or on the Web.

[ascl:1412.009] URCHIN: Reverse ray tracer

URCHIN is a Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) reverse ray tracer (i.e. from particles to sources). It calculates the amount of shielding from a uniform background that each particle experiences. Preservation of the adaptive density field resolution present in many gas dynamics codes and uniform sampling of gas resolution elements with rays are two of the benefits of URCHIN; it also offers preservation of Galilean invariance, high spectral resolution, and preservation of the standard uniform UV background in optically thin gas.

[ascl:1412.003] UTM: Universal Transit Modeller

The Universal Transit Modeller (UTM) is a light-curve simulator for all kinds of transiting or eclipsing configurations between arbitrary numbers of several types of objects, which may be stars, planets, planetary moons, and planetary rings. A separate fitting program, UFIT (Universal Fitter) is part of the UTM distribution and may be used to derive best fits to light-curves for any set of continuously variable parameters. UTM/UFIT is written in IDL code and its source is released in the public domain under the GNU General Public License.

[ascl:1412.013] CRPropa: Numerical tool for the propagation of UHE cosmic rays, gamma-rays and neutrinos

CRPropa computes the observable properties of UHECRs and their secondaries in a variety of models for the sources and propagation of these particles. CRPropa takes into account interactions and deflections of primary UHECRs as well as propagation of secondary electromagnetic cascades and neutrinos. CRPropa makes use of the public code SOPHIA (ascl:1412.014), and the TinyXML, CFITSIO (ascl:1010.001), and CLHEP libraries. A major advantage of CRPropa is its modularity, which allows users to implement their own modules adapted to specific UHECR propagation models. An updated version, CRPropa3 (ascl:2208.016), is available.

[ascl:1711.016] Thindisk: Protoplanetary disk model

Thindisk computes the line emission from a geometrically thin protoplanetary disk. It creates a datacube in FITS format that can be processed with a data reduction package (such as GILDAS, ascl:1305.010) to produce synthetic images and visibilities. These synthetic data can be compared with observations to determine the properties (e.g. central mass or inclination) of an observed disk. The disk is assumed to be in Keplerian rotation at a radius lower than the centrifugal radius (which can be set to a large value, for a purely Keplerian disk), and in infall with rotation beyond the centrifugal radius.

[ascl:1501.012] Exorings: Exoring modelling software

Exorings, written in Python, contains tools for displaying and fitting giant extrasolar planet ring systems; it uses FITS formatted data for input.

[ascl:1502.017] AMIsurvey: Calibration and imaging pipeline for radio data

AMIsurvey is a fully automated calibration and imaging pipeline for data from the AMI-LA radio observatory; it has two key dependencies. The first is drive-ami, included in this entry. Drive-ami is a Python interface to the specialized AMI-REDUCE calibration pipeline, which applies path delay corrections, automatic flags for interference, pointing errors, shadowing and hardware faults, applies phase and amplitude calibrations, Fourier transforms the data into the frequency domain, and writes out the resulting data in uvFITS format. The second is chimenea, which implements an automated imaging algorithm to convert the calibrated uvFITS into science-ready image maps. AMIsurvey links the calibration and imaging stages implemented within these packages together, configures the chimenea algorithm with parameters appropriate to data from AMI-LA, and provides a command-line interface.

[ascl:1502.020] ketu: Exoplanet candidate search code

ketu, written in Python, searches K2 light curves for evidence of exoplanets; the code simultaneously fits for systematic effects caused by small (few-pixel) drifts in the telescope pointing and other spacecraft issues and the transit signals of interest. Though more computationally expensive than standard search algorithms, it can be efficiently implemented and used to discover transit signals.

[ascl:1612.001] Python-CPL: Python interface for the ESO Common Pipeline Library

Python-CPL is a framework to configure and execute pipeline recipes written with the Common Pipeline Library (CPL) (ascl:1402.010) with Python2 or Python3. The input, calibration and output data can be specified as FITS files or as astropy.io.fits objects in memory. The package is used to implement the MUSE pipeline in the AstroWISE data management system.

[ascl:1505.010] COBS: COnstrained B-Splines

COBS (COnstrained B-Splines), written in R, creates constrained regression smoothing splines via linear programming and sparse matrices. The method has two important features: the number and location of knots for the spline fit are established using the likelihood-based Akaike Information Criterion (rather than a heuristic procedure); and fits can be made for quantiles (e.g. 25% and 75% as well as the usual 50%) in the response variable, which is valuable when the scatter is asymmetrical or non-Gaussian. This code is useful for, for example, estimating cluster ages when there is a wide spread in stellar ages at a chosen absorption, as a standard regression line does not give an effective measure of this relationship.

[ascl:1505.020] rvfit: Radial velocity curves fitting for binary stars or exoplanets

rvfit, developed in IDL 7.0, fits non-precessing keplerian radial velocity (RV) curves for double-line and single-line binary stars or exoplanets. It fits a simple keplerian model to the observed RV and computes the seven parameters (six for a single-line system) from the model. Some parameters can be fixed beforehand if they are known, for instance, if photometric observations are available. The fit is done using an Adaptive Simulated Annealing algorithm optimized for this specific task. Simulated Annealing methods are powerful heuristic algorithms to minimize functions in multiparametric spaces.

[ascl:1505.029] fits2hdf: FITS to HDFITS conversion

fits2hdf ports FITS files to Hierarchical Data Format (HDF5) files in the HDFITS format. HDFITS allows faster reading of data, higher compression ratios, and higher throughput. HDFITS formatted data can be presented transparently as an in-memory FITS equivalent by changing the import lines in Python-based FITS utilities. fits2hdf includes a utility to port MeasurementSets (MS) to HDF5 files.

[ascl:1505.030] CANDID: Companion Analysis and Non-Detection in Interferometric Data

CANDID finds faint companion around star in interferometric data in the OIFITS format. It allows systematically searching for faint companions in OIFITS data, and if not found, estimates the detection limit. The tool is based on model fitting and Chi2 minimization, with a grid for the starting points of the companion position. It ensures all positions are explored by estimating a-posteriori if the grid is dense enough, and provides an estimate of the optimum grid density.

[ascl:1507.006] Toyz: Large datasets and astronomical images analysis framework

Toyz is a python web framework that allows scientists to interact with large images and data sets stored on a remote server. A web application is run on the server containing the data and clients are run from web browsers on the user's computer. Toyz displays large FITS images and also renders any image format supported by Pillow (a fork of the Python Imaging Library), contains a GUI to interact with linked plots, and offers a customizable framework that allows students and researchers to create their own work spaces inside a Toyz environment. Astro-Toyz extends the features of the Toyz image viewer, allowing users to view world coordinates and align images based on their WCS.

[ascl:1507.001] 3D-Barolo: 3D fitting tool for the kinematics of galaxies

3D-Barolo (3D-Based Analysis of Rotating Object via Line Observations) or BBarolo is a tool for fitting 3D tilted-ring models to emission-line datacubes. BBarolo works with 3D FITS files, i.e. image arrays with two spatial and one spectral dimensions. BBarolo recovers the true rotation curve and estimates the intrinsic velocity dispersion even in barely resolved galaxies (about 2 resolution elements) if the signal to noise of the data is larger than 2-3. It has source-detection and first-estimate modules, making it suitable for analyzing large 3D datasets automatically, and is a useful tool for deriving reliable kinematics for both local and high-redshift galaxies.

[ascl:1507.005] slimplectic: Discrete non-conservative numerical integrator

slimplectic is a python implementation of a numerical integrator that uses a fixed time-step variational integrator formalism applied to the principle of stationary nonconservative action. It allows nonconservative effects to be included in the numerical evolution while preserving the major benefits of normally conservative symplectic integrators, particularly the accurate long-term evolution of momenta and energy. slimplectic is appropriate for exploring cosmological or celestial N-body dynamics problems where nonconservative interactions, e.g. dynamical friction or dissipative tides, can play an important role.

[ascl:1507.011] FAT: Fully Automated TiRiFiC

FAT (Fully Automated TiRiFiC) is an automated procedure that fits tilted-ring models to Hi data cubes of individual, well-resolved galaxies. The method builds on the 3D Tilted Ring Fitting Code (TiRiFiC, ascl:1208.008). FAT accurately models the kinematics and the morphologies of galaxies with an extent of eight beams across the major axis in the inclination range 20°-90° without the need for priors such as disc inclination. FAT's performance allows us to model the gas kinematics of many thousands of well-resolved galaxies, which is essential for future HI surveys, with the Square Kilometre Array and its pathfinders.

[ascl:1507.017] REDSPEC: NIRSPEC data reduction

REDSPEC is an IDL based reduction package designed with NIRSPEC in mind though can be used to reduce data from other spectrographs as well. REDSPEC accomplishes spatial rectification by summing an A+B pair of a calibration star to produce an image with two spectra; the image is remapped on the basis of polynomial fits to the spectral traces and calculation of gaussian centroids to define their separation, producing straight spectral traces with respect to the detector rows. The raw images are remapped onto a coordinate system with uniform intervals in spatial extent along the slit and in wavelength along the dispersion axis.

[ascl:1508.008] NGMIX: Gaussian mixture models for 2D images

NGMIX implements Gaussian mixture models for 2D images. Both the PSF profile and the galaxy are modeled using mixtures of Gaussians. Convolutions are thus performed analytically, resulting in fast model generation as compared to methods that perform the convolution in Fourier space. For the galaxy model, NGMIX supports exponential disks and de Vaucouleurs and Sérsic profiles; these are implemented approximately as a sum of Gaussians using the fits from Hogg & Lang (2013). Additionally, any number of Gaussians can be fit, either completely free or constrained to be cocentric and co-elliptical.

[ascl:1508.005] ColorPro: PSF-corrected aperture-matched photometry

ColorPro automatically obtains robust colors across images of varied PSF. To correct for the flux lost in images with poorer PSF, the "detection image" is blurred to match the PSF of these other images, allowing observation of how much flux is lost. All photometry is performed in the highest resolution frame (images being aligned given WCS information in the FITS headers), and identical apertures are used in every image. Usually isophotal apertures are used, as determined by SExtractor (ascl:1010.064). Using SExSeg (ascl:1508.006), object aperture definitions can be pre-defined and object detections from different image filters can be combined automatically into a single comprehensive "segmentation map." After producing the final photometric catalog, ColorPro can automatically run BPZ (ascl:1108.011) to obtain Bayesian Photometric Redshifts.

[ascl:1508.003] REDUCEME: Long-slit spectroscopic data reduction and analysis

The astronomical data reduction package REDUCEME reduces and analyzes long-slit spectroscopic data. The package uses the unformatted FORTRAN raw data format, so requires FITS files be transformed to REDUCEME format; the reverse operation (from REDUCEME to FITS format) is also available. The package is a set of programs written in FORTRAN 77 and includes shell scripts (using the C shell syntax) to perform routine tasks; it can be extended by the inclusion of external programs. REDUCEME uses PGPLOT (ascl:1103.002) for line plots and images, and a subset of subroutines, called BUTTON, enables the user to communicate interactively with the image display employing graphic buttons. One advantage of using REDUCEME is that for each image an associated error image can also be processed throughout the reduction process, allowing for a careful control of the error propagation.

[ascl:1508.004] FRELLED: FITS Realtime Explorer of Low Latency in Every Dimension

FRELLED (FITS Realtime Explorer of Low Latency in Every Dimension) creates 3D images in real time from 3D FITS files and is written in Python for the 3D graphics suite Blender. Users can interactively generate masks around regions of arbitrary geometry and use them to catalog sources, hide regions, and perform basic analysis (e.g., image statistics within the selected region, generate contour plots, query NED and the SDSS). World coordinates are supported and multi-volume rendering is possible. FRELLED is designed for viewing HI data cubes and provides a number of tasks to commonly-used MIRIAD (ascl:1106.007) tasks (e.g. mbspect); however, many of its features are suitable for any type of data set. It also includes an n-body particle viewer with the ability to display 3D vector information as well as the ability to render time series movies of multiple FITS files and setup simple turntable rotation movies for single files.

[ascl:1508.009] Trilogy: FITS image conversion software

Trilogy automatically scales and combines FITS images to produce color or grayscale images using Python scripts. The user assigns images to each color channel (RGB) or a single image to grayscale luminosity. Trilogy determines the intensity scaling automatically and independently in each channel to display faint features without saturating bright features. Each channel's scaling is determined based on a sample of the image (or summed images) and two input parameters. One parameter sets the output luminosity of "the noise," currently determined as 1-sigma above the sigma-clipped mean. The other parameter sets what fraction of the data (if any) in the sample region should be allowed to saturate. Default values for these parameters (0.15% and 0.001%, respectively) work well, but the user is able to adjust them. The scaling is accomplished using the logarithmic function y = a log(kx + 1) clipped between 0 and 1, where a and k are constants determined based on the data and desired scaling parameters as described above.

[ascl:1509.003] AFR (ASPFitsReader): A pulsar FITS file reader and analysis package

AFR, or ASPFitsReader, reduces, processes, and manipulates pulsar data, including calibration, template profile creation, and interactive excision of radio frequency interference from pulsar profile data. It also creates times-of-arrival compatible with Tempo (ascl:1509.002) and Tempo2 (ascl:1210.015) timing software.

[ascl:1511.014] HumVI: Human Viewable Image creation

HumVI creates a composite color image from sets of input FITS files, following the Lupton et al (2004, ascl:1511.013) composition algorithm. Written in Python, it takes three FITS files as input and returns a color composite, color-saturated png image with an arcsinh stretch. HumVI reads the zero points out of the FITS headers and uses them to put all the images on the same flux scale; photometrically calibrated images produce the best results.

[ascl:1510.004] DEBiL: Detached Eclipsing Binary Light curve fitter

DEBiL rapidly fits a large number of light curves to a simple model. It is the central component of a pipeline for systematically identifying and analyzing eclipsing binaries within a large dataset of light curves; the results of DEBiL can be used to flag light curves of interest for follow-up analysis.

[ascl:1609.001] T-PHOT: PSF-matched, prior-based, multiwavelength extragalactic deconfusion photometry

T-PHOT extracts accurate photometry from low-resolution images of extragalactic fields, where the blending of sources can be a serious problem for accurate and unbiased measurement of fluxes and colors. It gathers data from a high-resolution image of a region of the sky and uses the source positions and morphologies to obtain priors for the photometric analysis of the lower resolution image of the same field. T-PHOT handles different types of datasets as input priors, including a list of objects that will be used to obtain cutouts from the real high-resolution image, a set of analytical models (as .fits stamps), and a list of unresolved, point-like sources, useful for example for far-infrared wavelength domains. T-PHOT yields accurate estimations of fluxes within the intrinsic uncertainties of the method when systematic errors are taken into account (which can be done using a flagging code given in the output), and handles multiwavelength optical to far-infrared image photometry. T-PHOT was developed as part of the ASTRODEEP project (www.astrodeep.eu).

[ascl:1512.005] ALFA: Automated Line Fitting Algorithm

ALFA fits emission line spectra of arbitrary wavelength coverage and resolution, fully automatically. It uses a catalog of lines which may be present to construct synthetic spectra, the parameters of which are then optimized by means of a genetic algorithm. Uncertainties are estimated using the noise structure of the residuals. An emission line spectrum containing several hundred lines can be fitted in a few seconds using a single processor of a typical contemporary desktop or laptop PC. Data cubes in FITS format can be analysed using multiple processors, and an analysis of tens of thousands of deep spectra obtained with instruments such as MUSE will take a few hours.

[ascl:1512.015] Spirality: Spiral arm pitch angle measurement

Spirality measures spiral arm pitch angles by fitting galaxy images to spiral templates of known pitch. Written in MATLAB, the code package also includes GenSpiral, which produces FITS images of synthetic spirals, and SpiralArmCount, which uses a one-dimensional Fast Fourier Transform to count the spiral arms of a galaxy after its pitch is determined.

[ascl:1512.012] DiffuseModel: Modeling the diffuse ultraviolet background

DiffuseModel calculates the scattered radiation from dust scattering in the Milky Way based on stars from the Hipparcos catalog. It uses Monte Carlo to implement multiple scattering and assumes a user-supplied grid for the dust distribution. The output is a FITS file with the diffuse light over the Galaxy. It is intended for use in the UV (900 - 3000 A) but may be modified for use in other wavelengths and galaxies.

[ascl:1601.018] MATPHOT: Stellar photometry and astrometry with discrete point spread functions

A discrete Point Spread Function (PSF) is a sampled version of a continuous two-dimensional PSF. The shape information about the photon scattering pattern of a discrete PSF is typically encoded using a numerical table (matrix) or a FITS image file. MATPHOT shifts discrete PSFs within an observational model using a 21-pixel- wide damped sinc function and position partial derivatives are computed using a five-point numerical differentiation formula. MATPHOT achieves accurate and precise stellar photometry and astrometry of undersampled CCD observations by using supersampled discrete PSFs that are sampled two, three, or more times more finely than the observational data.

[ascl:1601.007] LIRA: Low-counts Image Reconstruction and Analysis

LIRA (Low-counts Image Reconstruction and Analysis) deconvolves any unknown sky components, provides a fully Poisson 'goodness-of-fit' for any best-fit model, and quantifies uncertainties on the existence and shape of unknown sky. It does this without resorting to χ2 or rebinning, which can lose high-resolution information. It is written in R and requires the FITSio package.

[ascl:1607.016] astLib: Tools for research astronomers

astLib is a set of Python modules for performing astronomical plots, some statistics, common calculations, coordinate conversions, and manipulating FITS images with World Coordinate System (WCS) information through PyWCSTools, a simple wrapping of WCSTools (ascl:1109.015).

[ascl:1601.001] TRADES: TRAnsits and Dynamics of Exoplanetary Systems

TRADES (TRAnsits and Dynamics of Exoplanetary Systems) simultaneously fits observed radial velocities and transit times data to determine the orbital parameters of exoplanetary systems from observational data. It uses a dynamical simulator for N-body systems that also fits the available data during the orbital integration and determines the best combination of the orbital parameters using grid search, χ2 minimization, genetic algorithms, particle swarm optimization, and bootstrap analysis.

[ascl:1601.002] Hyper-Fit: Fitting routines for multidimensional data with multivariate Gaussian uncertainties

The R package Hyper-Fit fits hyperplanes (hyper.fit) and creates 2D/3D visualizations (hyper.plot2d / hyper.plot3d) to produce robust 1D linear fits for 2D x vs y type data, and robust 2D plane fits to 3D x vs y vs z type data. This hyperplane fitting works generically for any N-1 hyperplane model being fit to a N dimensional dataset. All fits include intrinsic scatter in the generative model orthogonal to the hyperplane. A web interface for online fitting is also available at http://hyperfit.icrar.org.

[ascl:1603.017] HIIexplorer: Detect and extract integrated spectra of HII regions

HIIexplorer detects and extracts the integrated spectra of HII regions from IFS datacubes. The procedure assumes H ii regions are peaky/isolated structures with a strong ionized gas emission, clearly above the continuum emission and the average ionized gas emission across the galaxy and that H ii regions have a typical physical size of about a hundred or a few hundreds of parsecs, which corresponds to a typical projected size at the distance of the galaxies of a few arcsec for galaxies at z~0.016. All input parameters can be derived from either a visual inspection and/or a statistical analysis of the Hα emission line map. The algorithm produces a segmentation FITS file describing the pixels associated to each H ii region. A newer version of this code, pyHIIexplorer (ascl:2206.010), is available.

[ascl:1601.003] SCOUSE: Semi-automated multi-COmponent Universal Spectral-line fitting Engine

The Semi-automated multi-COmponent Universal Spectral-line fitting Engine (SCOUSE) is a spectral line fitting algorithm that fits Gaussian files to spectral line emission. It identifies the spatial area over which to fit the data and generates a grid of spectral averaging areas (SAAs). The spatially averaged spectra are fitted according to user-provided tolerance levels, and the best fit is selected using the Akaike Information Criterion, which weights the chisq of a best-fitting solution according to the number of free-parameters. A more detailed inspection of the spectra can be performed to improve the fit through an iterative process, after which SCOUSE integrates the new solutions into the solution file.

[ascl:1602.010] The Cannon: Data-driven method for determining stellar parameters and abundances from stellar spectra

The Cannon is a data-driven method for determining stellar labels (physical parameters and chemical abundances) from stellar spectra in the context of vast spectroscopic surveys. It fits for the spectral model given training spectra and labels, with the polynomial order for the spectral model decided by the user, infers labels for the test spectra, and provides diagnostic output for monitoring and evaluating the process. It offers SNR-independent continuum normalization, performs well at lower signal-to-noise, and is very accurate.

[ascl:1602.007] FilTER: Filament Trait-Evaluated Reconstruction

FilTER (Filament Trait-Evaluated Reconstruction) post-processes output from DisPerSE (ascl:1302.015 ) to produce a set of filaments that are well-defined and have measured properties (e.g. width), then cuts the profiles, fits and assesses them to reconstruct new filaments according to defined criteria.

[ascl:1602.020] mbb_emcee: Modified Blackbody MCMC

Mbb_emcee fits modified blackbodies to photometry data using an affine invariant MCMC. It has large number of options which, for example, allow computation of the IR luminosity or dustmass as part of the fit. Carrying out a fit produces a HDF5 output file containing the results, which can either be read directly, or read back into a mbb_results object for analysis. Upper and lower limits can be imposed as well as Gaussian priors on the model parameters. These additions are useful for analyzing poorly constrained data. In addition to standard Python packages scipy, numpy, and cython, mbb_emcee requires emcee (ascl:1303.002), Astropy (ascl:1304.002), h5py, and for unit tests, nose.

[ascl:1603.013] PyGDSM: Python interface to Global Diffuse Sky Models

PyGDSM (formely PyGSM) is a Python interface for the Global Sky Model (GSM, ascl:1011.010). The GSM is a model of diffuse galactic radio emission, constructed from a variety of all-sky surveys spanning the radio band (e.g. Haslam and WMAP). PyGDSM uses the GSM to generate all-sky maps in Healpix format of diffuse Galactic radio emission from 10 MHz to 94 GHz. The PyGDSM module provides visualization utilities, file output in FITS format, and the ability to generate observed skies for a given location and date. PyGDSM requires Healpy (ascl:2008.022), PyEphem (ascl:1112.014), and AstroPy (ascl:1304.002).

[ascl:1604.003] LAMBDAR: Lambda Adaptive Multi-Band Deblending Algorithm in R

LAMBDAR measures galaxy fluxes from an arbitrary FITS image, covering an arbitrary photometric wave-band, when provided all parameters needed to construct galactic apertures at the required locations for multi-band matched aperture galactic photometry. Through sophisticated matched aperture photometry, the package develops robust Spectral Energy Distributions (SEDs) and accurately establishes the physical properties of galactic objects. LAMBDAR was based on a package detailed in Bourne et al. (2012) that determined galactic fluxes in low resolution Herschel images.

[ascl:2007.024] CaTffs: Calcium triplet indexes

CaTffs predicts the strength of calcium triplet indices (CaT*, PaT and CaT) on the basis of empirical fitting functions and performs required interpolations between the different local functions. Together with the indices predictions, the program also computes the random errors associated to such predictions resulting from the covariance matrices of the fits (for the indices CaT* and PaT). This ensures a reliable error index estimation for any combination of input atmospheric parameters.

[ascl:1606.007] COMB: Compact embedded object simulations

COMB supports the simulation on the sphere of compact objects embedded in a stochastic background process of specified power spectrum. Support is provided to add additional white noise and convolve with beam functions. Functionality to support functions defined on the sphere is provided by the S2 code (ascl:1606.008); HEALPix (ascl:1107.018) and CFITSIO (ascl:1010.001) are also required.

[ascl:1605.005] TMBIDL: Single dish radio astronomy data reduction package

The IDL package reduces and analyzes radio astronomy data. It translates SDFITS files into TMBIDL format, and can average and display spectra, remove baselines, and fit Gaussian models.

[ascl:1605.012] K2SC: K2 Systematics Correction

K2SC (K2 Systematics Correction) models instrumental systematics and astrophysical variability in light curves from the K2 mission. It enables the user to remove both position-dependent systematics and time-dependent variability (e.g., for transit searches) or to remove systematics while preserving variability (for variability studies). K2SC automatically computes estimates of the period, amplitude and evolution timescale of the variability for periodic variables and can be run on ASCII and FITS light curve files. Written in Python, this pipeline requires NumPy, SciPy, MPI4Py, Astropy (ascl:1304.002), and George (ascl:1511.015).

[ascl:1605.013] grtrans: Polarized general relativistic radiative transfer via ray tracing

grtrans calculates ray tracing radiative transfer in the Kerr metric, including the full treatment of polarised radiative transfer and parallel transport along geodesics, for comparing theoretical models of black hole accretion flows and jets with observations. The code is written in Fortran 90 and parallelizes with OpenMP; the full code and several components have Python interfaces. grtrans includes Geokerr (ascl:1011.015) and requires cfitsio (ascl:1010.001) and pyfits (ascl:1207.009).

[ascl:1606.006] uvmcmcfit: Parametric models to interferometric data fitter

Uvmcmcfit fits parametric models to interferometric data. It is ideally suited to extract the maximum amount of information from marginally resolved observations with interferometers like the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA), Submillimeter Array (SMA), and Plateau de Bure Interferometer (PdBI). uvmcmcfit uses emcee (ascl:1303.002) to do Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) and can measure the goodness of fit from visibilities rather than deconvolved images, an advantage when there is strong gravitational lensing and in other situations. uvmcmcfit includes a pure-Python adaptation of Miriad’s (ascl:1106.007) uvmodel task to generate simulated visibilities given observed visibilities and a model image and a simple ray-tracing routine that allows it to account for both strongly lensed systems (where multiple images of the lensed galaxy are detected) and weakly lensed systems (where only a single image of the lensed galaxy is detected).

[ascl:1606.003] Cygrid: Cython-powered convolution-based gridding module for Python

The Python module Cygrid grids (resamples) data to any collection of spherical target coordinates, although its typical application involves FITS maps or data cubes. The module supports the FITS world coordinate system (WCS) standard; its underlying algorithm is based on the convolution of the original samples with a 2D Gaussian kernel. A lookup table scheme allows parallelization of the code and is combined with the HEALPix tessellation of the sphere for fast neighbor searches. Cygrid's runtime scales between O(n) and O(nlog n), with n being the number of input samples.

[ascl:1606.008] s2: Object oriented wrapper for functions on the sphere

The s2 package can represent any arbitrary function defined on the sphere. Both real space map and harmonic space spherical harmonic representations are supported. Basic sky representations have been extended to simulate full sky noise distributions and Gaussian cosmic microwave background realisations. Support for the representation and convolution of beams is also provided. The code requires HEALPix (ascl:1107.018) and CFITSIO (ascl:1010.001).

[ascl:1607.007] JUDE: An Utraviolet Imaging Telescope pipeline

JUDE (Jayant's UVIT Data Explorer) converts the Level 1 data (FITS binary table) from the Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (UVIT) on ASTROSAT into three output files: a photon event list as a function of frame number (FITS binary table); a FITS image file with two extensions; and a PNG file created from the FITS image file with an automated scaling.

[ascl:1607.011] HfS: Hyperfine Structure fitting tool

HfS fits the hyperfine structure of spectral lines, with multiple velocity components. The HfS_nh3 procedures included in HfS fit simultaneously the hyperfine structure of the NH3 (J,K)= (1,1) and (2,2) inversion transitions, and perform a standard analysis to derive the NH3 column density, rotational temperature Trot, and kinetic temperature Tk. HfS uses a Monte Carlo approach for fitting the line parameters, with special attention to the derivation of the parameter uncertainties. HfS includes procedures that make use of parallel computing for fitting spectra from a data cube.

[ascl:1608.001] Stingray: Spectral-timing software

Stingray is a spectral-timing software package for astrophysical X-ray (and more) data. The package merges existing efforts for a (spectral-)timing package in Python and is composed of a library of time series methods (including power spectra, cross spectra, covariance spectra, and lags); scripts to load FITS data files from different missions; a simulator of light curves and event lists that includes different kinds of variability and more complicated phenomena based on the impulse response of given physical events (e.g. reverberation); and a GUI to ease the learning curve for new users.

[ascl:1608.009] FilFinder: Filamentary structure in molecular clouds

FilFinder extracts and analyzes filamentary structure in molecular clouds. In particular, it is capable of uniformly extracting structure over a large dynamical range in intensity. It returns the main filament properties: local amplitude and background, width, length, orientation and curvature. FilFinder offers additional tools to, for example, create a filament-only image based on the properties of the radial fits. The resulting mask and skeletons may be saved in FITS format, and property tables may be saved as a CSV, FITS or LaTeX table.

[ascl:2103.006] ggm: Gaussian gradient magnitude filtering of astronomical images

Ggm contains useful utilities for Gaussian gradient filtering of astronomical FITS images. It applies the Gaussian gradient magnitude filter to an input fits image, using a particular scale, sigma, in pixels. ggm cosmetically hides point sources in fits images by filling point sources with random values from the surrounding pixel region. It also provides an interactive tool to combine FITS images filtered on different scales.

[ascl:1608.011] PROFFIT: Analysis of X-ray surface-brightness profiles

PROFFIT analyzes X-ray surface-brightness profiles for data from any X-ray instrument. It can extract surface-brightness profiles in circular or elliptical annuli, using constant or logarithmic bin size, from the image centroid, the surface-brightness peak, or any user-given center, and provides surface-brightness profiles in any circular or elliptical sectors. It offers background map support to extract background profiles, can excise areas using SAO DS9-compatible (ascl:0003.002) region files to exclude point sources, provides fitting with a number of built-in models, including the popular beta model, double beta, cusp beta, power law, and projected broken power law, uses chi-squared or C statistic, and can fit on the surface-brightness or counts data. It has a command-line interface similar to HEASOFT’s XSPEC (ascl:9910.005) package, provides interactive help with a description of all the commands, and results can be saved in FITS, ROOT or TXT format.

[ascl:1608.006] Gemini IRAF: Data reduction software for the Gemini telescopes

The Gemini IRAF package processes observational data obtained with the Gemini telescopes. It is an external package layered upon IRAF and supports data from numerous instruments, including FLAMINGOS-2, GMOS-N, GMOS-S, GNIRS, GSAOI, NIFS, and NIRI. The Gemini IRAF package is organized into sub-packages; it contains a generic tools package, "gemtools", along with instrument-specific packages. The raw data from the Gemini facility instruments are stored as Multi-Extension FITS (MEF) files. Therefore, all the tasks in the Gemini IRAF package, intended for processing data from the Gemini facility instruments, are capable of handling MEF files.

[ascl:1609.015] FIT3D: Fitting optical spectra

FIT3D fits optical spectra to deblend the underlying stellar population and the ionized gas, and extract physical information from each component. FIT3D is focused on the analysis of Integral Field Spectroscopy data, but is not restricted to it, and is the basis of Pipe3D, a pipeline used in the analysis of datasets like CALIFA, MaNGA, and SAMI. It can run iteratively or in an automatic way to derive the parameters of a large set of spectra.

[ascl:1609.007] Weighted EMPCA: Weighted Expectation Maximization Principal Component Analysis

Weighted EMPCA performs principal component analysis (PCA) on noisy datasets with missing values. Estimates of the measurement error are used to weight the input data such that the resulting eigenvectors, when compared to classic PCA, are more sensitive to the true underlying signal variations rather than being pulled by heteroskedastic measurement noise. Missing data are simply limiting cases of weight = 0. The underlying algorithm is a noise weighted expectation maximization (EM) PCA, which has additional benefits of implementation speed and flexibility for smoothing eigenvectors to reduce the noise contribution.

[ascl:1906.022] pyLIMA: Microlensing modeling package

pyLIMA (python Lightcurve Identification and Microlensing Analysis) fits microlensing lightcurves and derives the physical quantities of lens systems. The package provides microlensing modeling, and the magnification estimation for high cadence lightcurves has been optimized. pyLIMA is designed to make microlensing modeling and event simulation widely available to the community.

[ascl:1712.002] MPI_XSTAR: MPI-based parallelization of XSTAR program

MPI_XSTAR parallelizes execution of multiple XSTAR runs using Message Passing Interface (MPI). XSTAR (ascl:9910.008), part of the HEASARC's HEAsoft (ascl:1408.004) package, calculates the physical conditions and emission spectra of ionized gases. MPI_XSTAR invokes XSTINITABLE from HEASoft to generate a job list of XSTAR commands for given physical parameters. The job list is used to make directories in ascending order, where each individual XSTAR is spawned on each processor and outputs are saved. HEASoft's XSTAR2TABLE program is invoked upon the contents of each directory in order to produce table model FITS files for spectroscopy analysis tools.

[ascl:1609.022] PyPHER: Python-based PSF Homogenization kERnels

PyPHER (Python-based PSF Homogenization kERnels) computes an homogenization kernel between two PSFs; the code is well-suited for PSF matching applications in both an astronomical or microscopy context. It can warp (rotation + resampling) the PSF images (if necessary), filter images in Fourier space using a regularized Wiener filter, and produce a homogenization kernel. PyPHER requires the pixel scale information to be present in the FITS files, which can if necessary be added by using the provided ADDPIXSCL method.

[ascl:1610.002] CERES: Collection of Extraction Routines for Echelle Spectra

The Collection of Extraction Routines for Echelle Spectra (CERES) constructs automated pipelines for the reduction, extraction, and analysis of echelle spectrograph data. This modular code includes tools for handling the different steps of the processing: CCD reductions, tracing of the echelle orders, optimal and simple extraction, computation of the wave-length solution, estimation of radial velocities, and rough and fast estimation of the atmospheric parameters. The standard output of pipelines constructed with CERES is a FITS cube with the optimally extracted, wavelength calibrated and instrumental drift-corrected spectrum for each of the science images. Additionally, CERES includes routines for the computation of precise radial velocities and bisector spans via the cross-correlation method, and an automated algorithm to obtain an estimate of the atmospheric parameters of the observed star.

[ascl:1610.009] velbin: radial velocity corrected for binary orbital motions

Velbin convolves the radial velocity offsets due to binary orbital motions with a Gaussian to model an observed velocity distribution. This can be used to measure the mean velocity and velocity dispersion from an observed radial velocity distribution, corrected for binary orbital motions. Velbin fits single- or multi-epoch data with any arbitrary binary orbital parameter distribution (as long as it can be sampled properly), however it always assumes that the intrinsic velocity distribution (i.e. corrected for binary orbital motions) is a Gaussian. Velbin samples (and edits) a binary orbital parameter distribution, fits an observed radial velocity distribution, and creates a mock radial velocity distribution that can be used to provide the fitted radial velocities in the single_epoch or multi_epoch methods.

[ascl:1610.008] cluster-in-a-box: Statistical model of sub-millimeter emission from embedded protostellar clusters

Cluster-in-a-box provides a statistical model of sub-millimeter emission from embedded protostellar clusters and consists of three modules grouped in two scripts. The first (cluster_distribution) generates the cluster based on the number of stars, input initial mass function, spatial distribution and age distribution. The second (cluster_emission) takes an input file of observations, determines the mass-intensity correlation and generates outflow emission for all low-mass Class 0 and I sources. The output is stored as a FITS image where the flux density is determined by the desired resolution, pixel scale and cluster distance.

[ascl:1611.003] MPDAF: MUSE Python Data Analysis Framework

MPDAF, the MUSE Python Data Analysis Framework, provides tools to work with MUSE-specific data (for example, raw data and pixel tables), and with more general data such as spectra, images, and data cubes. Originally written to work with MUSE data, it can also be used for other data, such as that from the Hubble Space Telescope. MPDAF also provides MUSELET, a SExtractor-based tool to detect emission lines in a data cube, and a format to gather all the information on a source in one FITS file. MPDAF was developed and is maintained by CRAL (Centre de Recherche Astrophysique de Lyon).

[ascl:1611.010] Kapteyn Package: Tools for developing astronomical applications

The Kapteyn Package provides tools for the development of astronomical applications with Python. It handles spatial and spectral coordinates, WCS projections and transformations between different sky systems; spectral translations (e.g., between frequencies and velocities) and mixed coordinates are also supported. Kapteyn offers versatile tools for writing small and dedicated applications for the inspection of FITS headers, the extraction and display of (FITS) data, interactive inspection of this data (color editing) and for the creation of plots with world coordinate information. It includes utilities for use with matplotlib such as obtaining coordinate information from plots, interactively modifiable colormaps and timer events (module mplutil); tools for parsing and interpreting coordinate information entered by the user (module positions); a function to search for gaussian components in a profile (module profiles); and a class for non-linear least squares fitting (module kmpfit).

[ascl:1611.020] CMCIRSED: Far-infrared spectral energy distribution fitting for galaxies near and far

The Caitlin M. Casey Infra Red Spectral Energy Distribution model (CMCIRSED) provides a simple SED fitting technique suitable for a wide range of IR data, from sources which have only three IR photometric points to sources with >10 photometric points. These SED fits produce accurate estimates to a source's integrated IR luminosity, dust temperature and dust mass. CMCIRSED is based on a single dust temperature greybody fit linked to a MIR power law, fitted simultaneously to data across ∼5–2000 μm.

[ascl:1612.003] libprofit: Image creation from luminosity profiles

libprofit is a C++ library for image creation based on different luminosity profiles. It offers fast and accurate two-dimensional integration for a useful number of profiles, including Sersic, Core-Sersic, broken-exponential, Ferrer, Moffat, empirical King, point-source and sky, with a simple mechanism for adding new profiles. libprofit provides a utility to read the model and profile parameters from the command-line and generate the corresponding image. It can output the resulting image as text values, a binary stream, or as a simple FITS file. It also provides a shared library exposing an API that can be used by any third-party application. R and Python interfaces are available: ProFit (ascl:1612.004) and PyProfit (ascl:1612.005).

[ascl:1612.009] CRETE: Comet RadiativE Transfer and Excitation

CRETE (Comet RadiativE Transfer and Excitation) is a one-dimensional water excitation and radiation transfer code for sub-millimeter wavelengths based on the RATRAN code (ascl:0008.002). The code considers rotational transitions of water molecules given a Haser spherically symmetric distribution for the cometary coma and produces FITS image cubes that can be analyzed with tools like MIRIAD (ascl:1106.007). In addition to collisional processes to excite water molecules, the effect of infrared radiation from the Sun is approximated by effective pumping rates for the rotational levels in the ground vibrational state.

[ascl:1612.010] Earthshine simulator: Idealized images of the Moon

Terrestrial albedo can be determined from observations of the relative intensity of earthshine. Images of the Moon at different lunar phases can be analyzed to derive the semi-hemispheric mean albedo of the Earth, and an important tool for doing this is simulations of the appearance of the Moon for any time. This software produces idealized images of the Moon for arbitrary times. It takes into account the libration of the Moon and the distances between Sun, Moon and the Earth, as well as the relevant geometry. The images of the Moon are produced as FITS files. User input includes setting the Julian Day of the simulation. Defaults for image size and field of view are set to produce approximately 1x1 degree images with the Moon in the middle from an observatory on Earth, currently set to Mauna Loa.

[ascl:1807.027] kplr: Tools for working with Kepler data using Python

kplr provides a lightweight Pythonic interface to the catalog of planet candidates (Kepler Objects of Interest [KOIs]) in the NASA Exoplanet Archive and the data stored in the Barbara A. Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST). kplr automatically supports loading Kepler data using pyfits (ascl:1207.009) and supports two types of data: light curves and target pixel files.

[ascl:1704.010] A-Track: Detecting Moving Objects in FITS images

A-Track is a fast, open-source, cross-platform pipeline for detecting moving objects (asteroids and comets) in sequential telescope images in FITS format. The moving objects are detected using a modified line detection algorithm.

[ascl:1701.010] kcorrect: Calculate K-corrections between observed and desired bandpasses

kcorrect fits very restricted spectral energy distribution models to galaxy photometry or spectra in the restframe UV, optical and near-infrared. The main purpose of the fits are for calculating K-corrections. The templates used for the fits may also be interpreted physically, since they are based on the Bruzual-Charlot stellar evolution synthesis codes. Thus, for each fit galaxy kcorrect can provide an estimate of the stellar mass-to-light ratio.

[ascl:1702.005] JetCurry: Modeling 3D geometry of AGN jets from 2D images

Written in Python, JetCurry models the 3D geometry of jets from 2-D images. JetCurry requires NumPy and SciPy and incorporates emcee (ascl:1303.002) and AstroPy (ascl:1304.002), and optionally uses VPython. From a defined initial part of the jet that serves as a reference point, JetCurry finds the position of highest flux within a bin of data in the image matrix and fits along the x axis for the general location of the bends in the jet. A spline fitting is used to smooth out the resulted jet stream.

[ascl:1806.029] EXO-NAILER: EXOplanet traNsits and rAdIal veLocity fittER

EXO-NAILER (EXOplanet traNsits and rAdIal veLocity fittER) efficiently fits exoplanet transit lightcurves, radial velocities (RVs) or both. The code handles data taken with different instruments. For RVs, a different center-of-mass velocity can be fitted for each instrument to account for offsets between them; if jitter is included, a different jitter term can also fitted for each instrument. For transits, a different photometric jitter can be fitted to each instrument as can different limb-darkening coefficients and different transit depths. In addition to general options that need to be set, EXO-NAILER also requires that photometry and radial velocity options be defined for each instrument.

[ascl:1704.006] Quickclump: Identify clumps within a 3D FITS datacube

Quickclump finds clumps in a 3D FITS datacube. It is a fast, accurate, and automated tool written in Python. Though Quickclump is primarily intended for decomposing observations of interstellar clouds into individual clumps, it can also be used for finding clumps in any 3D rectangular data.

[ascl:1704.005] VaST: Variability Search Toolkit

VaST (Variability Search Toolkit) finds variable objects on a series of astronomical images in FITS format. The software performs object detection and aperture photometry using SExtractor (ascl:1010.064) on each image, cross-matches lists of detected stars, performs magnitude calibration with respect to the first (reference) image and constructs a lightcurve for each object. The sigma-magnitude, Stetson's L variability index, Robust Median Statistic (RoMS) and other plots may be used to visually identify variable star candidates. The two distinguishing features of VaST are its ability to perform accurate aperture photometry of images obtained with non-linear detectors and to handle complex image distortions. VaST can be used in cases of unstable PSF (e.g., bad guiding or with digitized wide-field photographic images), and has been successfully applied to images obtained with telescopes ranging from 0.08 to 2.5m in diameter equipped with a variety of detectors including CCD, CMOS, MIC and photographic plates.

[ascl:1704.003] Shwirl: Meaningful coloring of spectral cube data with volume rendering

Shwirl visualizes spectral data cubes with meaningful coloring methods. The program has been developed to investigate transfer functions, which combines volumetric elements (or voxels) to set the color, and graphics shaders, functions used to compute several properties of the final image such as color, depth, and/or transparency, as enablers for scientific visualization of astronomical data. The program uses Astropy (ascl:1304.002) to handle FITS files and World Coordinate System, Qt (and PyQt) for the user interface, and VisPy, an object-oriented Python visualization library binding onto OpenGL.

[ascl:1705.014] NPTFit: Non-Poissonian Template Fitting

NPTFit is a specialized Python/Cython package that implements Non-Poissonian Template Fitting (NPTF), originally developed for characterizing populations of unresolved point sources. It offers fast evaluation of likelihoods for NPTF analyses and has an easy-to-use interface for performing non-Poissonian (as well as standard Poissonian) template fits using MultiNest (ascl:1109.006) or other inference tools. It allows inclusion of an arbitrary number of point source templates, with an arbitrary number of degrees of freedom in the modeled flux distribution, and has modules for analyzing and plotting the results of an NPTF.

[ascl:1707.005] PyMOC: Multi-Order Coverage map module for Python

PyMOC manipulates Multi-Order Coverage (MOC) maps. It supports reading and writing the three encodings mentioned in the IVOA MOC recommendation: FITS, JSON and ASCII.

[ascl:1706.011] PyPulse: PSRFITS handler

PyPulse handles PSRFITS files and performs subsequent analyses on pulse profiles.

[ascl:1707.001] HRM: HII Region Models

HII Region Models fits HII region models to observed radio recombination line and radio continuum data. The algorithm includes the calculations of departure coefficients to correct for non-LTE effects. HII Region Models has been used to model star formation in the nucleus of IC 342.

[ascl:1802.002] venice: Mask utility

venice reads a mask file (DS9 or fits type) and a catalogue of objects (ascii or fits type) to create a pixelized mask, find objects inside/outside a mask, or generate a random catalogue of objects inside/outside a mask. The program reads the mask file and checks if a point, giving its coordinates, is inside or outside the mask, i.e. inside or outside at least one polygon of the mask.

[ascl:1708.024] ComEst: Completeness Estimator

ComEst calculates the completeness of CCD images conducted in astronomical observations saved in the FITS format. It estimates the completeness of the source finder SExtractor (ascl:1010.064) on the optical and near-infrared (NIR) imaging of point sources or galaxies as a function of flux (or magnitude) directly from the image itself. It uses PyFITS (ascl:1207.009) and GalSim (ascl:1402.009) to perform the end-to-end estimation of the completeness and can also estimate the purity of the source detection.

[ascl:1708.023] ExoSOFT: Exoplanet Simple Orbit Fitting Toolbox

ExoSOFT provides orbital analysis of exoplanets and binary star systems. It fits any combination of astrometric and radial velocity data, and offers four parameter space exploration techniques, including MCMC. It is packaged with an automated set of post-processing and plotting routines to summarize results, and is suitable for performing orbital analysis during surveys with new radial velocity and direct imaging instruments.

[ascl:1708.030] GAMBIT: Global And Modular BSM Inference Tool

GAMBIT (Global And Modular BSM Inference Tool) performs statistical global fits of generic physics models using a wide range of particle physics and astrophysics data. Modules provide native simulations of collider and astrophysics experiments, a flexible system for interfacing external codes (the backend system), a fully featured statistical and parameter scanning framework, and additional tools for implementing and using hierarchical models.

[ascl:1708.005] STools: IDL Tools for Spectroscopic Analysis

STools contains a variety of simple tools for spectroscopy, such as reading an IRAF-formatted (multispec) echelle spectrum in FITS, measuring the wavelength of the center of a line, Gaussian convolution, deriving synthetic photometry from an input spectrum, and extracting and interpolating a MARCS model atmosphere (standard composition).

[ascl:1708.010] BAGEMASS: Bayesian age and mass estimates for transiting planet host stars

BAGEMASS calculates the posterior probability distribution for the mass and age of a star from its observed mean density and other observable quantities using a grid of stellar models that densely samples the relevant parameter space. It is written in Fortran and requires FITSIO (ascl:1010.001).

[ascl:2007.018] OSPEX: Object Spectral Executive

OSPEX (Object Spectral Executive) is an object-oriented interface for X-ray spectral analysis of solar data. The next generation of SPEX (ascl:2007.017), it reads and displays input data, selects and subtracts background, selects time intervals of interest, selects a combination of photon flux model components to describe the data, and fits those components to the spectrum in each time interval selected. During the fitting process, the response matrix is used to convert the photon model to the model counts to compare with the input count data. The resulting time-ordered fit parameters are stored and can be displayed and analyzed with OSPEX. The entire OSPEX session can be saved in the form of a script and the fit results stored in the form of a FITS file. Part of the SolarSoft (ascl:1208.013) package, OSPEX works with any type of data structured in the form of time-ordered count spectra; RHESSI, Fermi, SOXS, MESSENGER, Yohkoh, SMM, and SMART data analysis have all been implemented in OSPEX.

[ascl:1710.006] MOSFiT: Modular Open-Source Fitter for Transients

MOSFiT (Modular Open-Source Fitter for Transients) downloads transient datasets from open online catalogs (e.g., the Open Supernova Catalog), generates Monte Carlo ensembles of semi-analytical light curve fits to those datasets and their associated Bayesian parameter posteriors, and optionally delivers the fitting results back to those same catalogs to make them available to the rest of the community. MOSFiT helps bridge the gap between observations and theory in time-domain astronomy; in addition to making the application of existing models and creation of new models as simple as possible, MOSFiT yields statistically robust predictions for transient characteristics, with a standard output format that includes all the setup information necessary to reproduce a given result.

[ascl:1710.018] FITSFH: Star Formation Histories

FITSFH derives star formation histories from photometry of resolved stellar populations by populating theoretical isochrones according to a chosen stellar initial mass function (IMF) and searching for the linear combination of isochrones with different ages and metallicities that best matches the data. In comparing the synthetic and real data, observational errors and incompleteness are taken into account, and a rudimentary treatment of the effect of unresolved binaries is also implemented. The code also allows for an age-dependent range of extinction values to be included in the modelling.

[ascl:1711.004] BayesVP: Full Bayesian Voigt profile fitting

BayesVP offers a Bayesian approach for modeling Voigt profiles in absorption spectroscopy. The code fits the absorption line profiles within specified wavelength ranges and generates posterior distributions for the column density, Doppler parameter, and redshifts of the corresponding absorbers. The code uses publicly available efficient parallel sampling packages to sample posterior and thus can be run on parallel platforms. BayesVP supports simultaneous fitting for multiple absorption components in high-dimensional parameter space. The package includes additional utilities such as explicit specification of priors of model parameters, continuum model, Bayesian model comparison criteria, and posterior sampling convergence check.

[ascl:1711.003] FTbg: Background removal using Fourier Transform

FTbg performs Fourier transforms on FITS images and separates low- and high-spatial frequency components by a user-specified cut. Both components are then inverse Fourier transformed back to image domain. FTbg can remove large-scale background/foreground emission in many astrophysical applications. FTbg has been designed to identify and remove Galactic background emission in Herschel/Hi-GAL continuum images, but it is applicable to any other (e.g., Planck) images when background/foreground emission is a concern.

[ascl:1711.005] correlcalc: Two-point correlation function from redshift surveys

correlcalc calculates two-point correlation function (2pCF) of galaxies/quasars using redshift surveys. It can be used for any assumed geometry or Cosmology model. Using BallTree algorithms to reduce the computational effort for large datasets, it is a parallelised code suitable for running on clusters as well as personal computers. It takes redshift (z), Right Ascension (RA) and Declination (DEC) data of galaxies and random catalogs as inputs in form of ascii or fits files. If random catalog is not provided, it generates one of desired size based on the input redshift distribution and mangle polygon file (in .ply format) describing the survey geometry. It also calculates different realisations of (3D) anisotropic 2pCF. Optionally it makes healpix maps of the survey providing visualization.

[ascl:1802.007] HiGal_SED_Fitter: SED fitting tools for Herschel Hi-Gal data

HiGal SED Fitter fits modified blackbody SEDs to Herschel data, specifically targeted at Herschel Hi-Gal data.

[ascl:1801.009] Gnuastro: GNU Astronomy Utilities

Gnuastro (GNU Astronomy Utilities) manipulates and analyzes astronomical data. It is an official GNU package of a large collection of programs and C/C++ library functions. Command-line programs perform arithmetic operations on images, convert FITS images to common types like JPG or PDF, convolve an image with a given kernel or matching of kernels, perform cosmological calculations, crop parts of large images (possibly in multiple files), manipulate FITS extensions and keywords, and perform statistical operations. In addition, it contains programs to make catalogs from detection maps, add noise, make mock profiles with a variety of radial functions using monte-carlo integration for their centers, match catalogs, and detect objects in an image among many other operations. The command-line programs share the same basic command-line user interface for the comfort of both the users and developers. Gnuastro is written to comply fully with the GNU coding standards and integrates well with all Unix-like operating systems. This enables astronomers to expect a fully familiar experience in the source code, building, installing and command-line user interaction that they have seen in all the other GNU software that they use. Gnuastro's extensive library is included for users who want to build their own unique programs.

[ascl:1802.006] VISIBLE: VISIbility Based Line Extraction

VISIBLE applies approximated matched filters to interferometric data, allowing line detection directly in visibility space. The filter can be created from a FITS image or RADMC3D output image, and the weak line data can be a CASA MS or uvfits file. The filter response spectrum can be output either to a .npy file or returned back to the user for scripting.

[ascl:1811.012] muLAn: gravitational MICROlensing Analysis Software

muLAn analyzes and fits light curves of gravitational microlensing events. The code includes all classical microlensing models (for example, single and binary microlenses, ground- and space-based parallax effects, orbital motion, finite-source effects, and limb-darkening); these can be combined into several time intervals of the analyzed light curve. Minimization methods include an Affine-Invariant Ensemble Sampler to generate a multivariate proposal function while running several Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) chains, for the set of parameters which is chosen to be fit; non-fitting parameters can be either kept fixed or set on a grid defined by the user. Furthermore, the software offers a model-free option to align all data sets together and allow inspection the light curve before any modeling work. It also comes with many useful routines (export publication-quality figures, data formatting and cleaning) and state-of-the-art statistical tools.

Modeling results can be interpreted using an interactive html page which contains all information about the light curve model, caustics, source trajectory, best-fit parameters and chi-square. Parameters uncertainties and statistical properties (such as multi-modal features of the posterior density) can be assessed from correlation plots. The code is modular, allowing the addition of other computation or minimization routines by directly adding their Python files without modifying the main code. The software has been designed to be easy to use even for the newcomer in microlensing, with external, synthetic and self-explanatory setup files containing all important commands and option settings. The user may choose to launch the code through command line instructions, or to import muLAn within another Python project like any standard Python package.

[ascl:1804.005] DaCHS: Data Center Helper Suite

DaCHS, the Data Center Helper Suite, is an integrated package for publishing astronomical data sets to the Virtual Observatory. Network-facing, it speaks the major VO protocols (SCS, SIAP, SSAP, TAP, Datalink, etc). Operator-facing, many input formats, including FITS/WCS, ASCII files, and VOTable, can be processed to publication-ready data. DaCHS puts particular emphasis on integrated metadata handling, which facilitates a tight integration with the VO's Registry

[ascl:1803.008] FAST: Fitting and Assessment of Synthetic Templates

FAST (Fitting and Assessment of Synthetic Templates) fits stellar population synthesis templates to broadband photometry and/or spectra. FAST is compatible with the photometric redshift code EAzY (ascl:1010.052) when fitting broadband photometry; it uses the photometric redshifts derived by EAzY, and the input files (for examply, photometric catalog and master filter file) are the same. FAST fits spectra in combination with broadband photometric data points or simultaneously fits two components, allowing for an AGN contribution in addition to the host galaxy light. Depending on the input parameters, FAST outputs the best-fit redshift, age, dust content, star formation timescale, metallicity, stellar mass, star formation rate (SFR), and their confidence intervals. Though some of FAST's functions overlap with those of HYPERZ (ascl:1108.010), it differs by fitting fluxes instead of magnitudes, allows the user to completely define the grid of input stellar population parameters and easily input photometric redshifts and their confidence intervals, and calculates calibrated confidence intervals for all parameters. Note that FAST is not a photometric redshift code, though it can be used as one.

[ascl:1804.017] APPHi: Automated Photometry Pipeline for High Cadence Large Volume Data

APPHi (Automated Photometry Pipeline) carries out aperture and differential photometry of TAOS-II project data. It is computationally efficient and can be used also with other astronomical wide-field image data. APPHi works with large volumes of data and handles both FITS and HDF5 formats. Due the large number of stars that the software has to handle in an enormous number of frames, it is optimized to automatically find the best value for parameters to carry out the photometry, such as mask size for aperture, size of window for extraction of a single star, and the number of counts for the threshold for detecting a faint star. Although intended to work with TAOS-II data, APPHi can analyze any set of astronomical images and is a robust and versatile tool to performing stellar aperture and differential photometry.

[ascl:1804.008] EGG: Empirical Galaxy Generator

The Empirical Galaxy Generator (EGG) generates fake galaxy catalogs and images with realistic positions, morphologies and fluxes from the far-ultraviolet to the far-infrared. The catalogs are generated by egg-gencat and stored in binary FITS tables (column oriented). Another program, egg-2skymaker, is used to convert the generated catalog into ASCII tables suitable for ingestion by SkyMaker (ascl:1010.066) to produce realistic high resolution images (e.g., Hubble-like), while egg-gennoise and egg-genmap can be used to generate the low resolution images (e.g., Herschel-like). These tools can be used to test source extraction codes, or to evaluate the reliability of any map-based science (stacking, dropout identification, etc.).

[ascl:1805.026] PySE: Python Source Extractor for radio astronomical images

PySE finds and measures sources in radio telescope images. It is run with several options, such as the detection threshold (a multiple of the local noise), grid size, and the forced clean beam fit, followed by a list of input image files in standard FITS or CASA format. From these, PySe provides a list of found sources; information such as the calculated background image, source list in different formats (e.g. text, region files importable in DS9), and other data may be saved. PySe can be integrated into a pipeline; it was originally written as part of the LOFAR Transient Detection Pipeline (TraP, ascl:1412.011).

[ascl:1806.011] P2DFFT: Parallelized technique for measuring galactic spiral arm pitch angles

P2DFFT is a parallelized version of 2DFFT (ascl:1608.015). It isolates and measures the spiral arm pitch angle of galaxies. The code allows direct input of FITS images, offers the option to output inverse Fourier transform FITS images, and generates idealized logarithmic spiral test images of a specified size that have 1 to 6 arms with pitch angles of -75 degrees to 75 degrees​​. Further, it can output Fourier amplitude versus inner radius and pitch angle versus inner radius for each Fourier component (m = 0 to m = 6), and calculates the Fourier amplitude weighted mean pitch angle across m = 1 to m = 6 versus inner radius.

[ascl:1806.025] BRATS: Broadband Radio Astronomy ToolS

BRATS (Broadband Radio Astronomy ToolS) provides tools for the spectral analysis of broad-bandwidth radio data and legacy support for narrowband telescopes. It can fit models of spectral ageing on small spatial scales, offers automatic selection of regions based on user parameters (e.g. signal to noise), and automatic determination of the best-fitting injection index. It includes statistical testing, including Chi-squared, error maps, confidence levels and binning of model fits, and can map spectral index as a function of position. It also provides the ability to reconstruct sources at any frequency for a given model and parameter set, subtract any two FITS images and output residual maps, easily combine and scale FITS images in the image plane, and resize radio maps.

[ascl:1808.006] Fips: An OpenGL based FITS viewer

FIPS is a cross-platform FITS viewer with a responsive user interface. Unlike other FITS viewers, FIPS uses GPU hardware via OpenGL to provide functionality such as zooming, panning and level adjustments. OpenGL 2.1 and later is supported. FIPS supports all 2D image formats except floating point formats on OpenGL 2.1. FITS image extension has basic limited support.

[ascl:1809.001] LEMON: Differential photometry pipeline

LEMON is a differential-photometry pipeline, written in Python, that determines the changes in the brightness of astronomical objects over time and compiles their measurements into light curves. This code makes it possible to completely reduce thousands of FITS images of time series in a matter of only a few hours, requiring minimal user interaction.

[ascl:1809.003] PASTA: Python Astronomical Stacking Tool Array

PASTA performs median stacking of astronomical sources. Written in Python, it can filter sources, provide stack statistics, generate Karma annotations, format source lists, and read information from stacked Flexible Image Transport System (FITS) images. PASTA was originally written to examine polarization stack properties and includes a Monte Carlo modeler for obtaining true polarized intensity from the observed polarization of a stack. PASTA is also useful as a generic stacking tool, even if polarization properties are not being examined.

[ascl:1809.007] surfinBH: Surrogate final black hole properties for mergers of binary black holes

surfinBH predicts the final mass, spin and recoil velocity of the remnant of a binary black hole merger. Trained directly against numerical relativity simulations, these models are extremely accurate, reproducing the results of the simulations at the same level of accuracy as the simulations themselves. Fits such as these play a crucial role in waveform modeling and tests of general relativity with gravitational waves, performed by LIGO.

[ascl:1809.015] MrMoose: Multi-Resolution Multi-Object/Origin Spectral Energy distribution fitting procedure

MrMoose (Multi-Resolution Multi-Object/Origin Spectral Energy) fits user-defined models onto a set of multi-wavelength data using a Bayesian framework. The code can handle blended sources, large variation in resolution, and even upper limits consistently. It also generates a series of outputs allowing for an quick interpretation of the results. The code uses emcee (ascl:1303.002), and saves the emcee sampler object, thus allowing users to transfer the output to a personal graphical interface.

[ascl:1810.001] galfast: Milky Way mock catalog generator

galfast generates catalogs for arbitrary, user-supplied Milky Way models, including empirically derived ones. The built-in model set is based on fits to SDSS stellar observations over 8000 deg2 of the sky and includes a three-dimensional dust distribution map. Because of the capability to use empirically derived models, galfast typically produces closer matches to the actual observed counts and color-magnitude diagrams. In particular, galfast-generated catalogs are used to derive the stellar component of “Universe Model” catalogs used by the LSST Project. A key distinguishing characteristic of galfast is its speed. Galfast uses the GPU (with kernels written in NVIDIA C/C++ for CUDA) to offload compute intensive model sampling computations to the GPU, enabling the generation of realistic catalogs to full LSST depth in hours (instead of days or weeks), making it possible to study proposed science cases with high precision.

[ascl:1810.015] cuFFS: CUDA-accelerated Fast Faraday Synthesis

cuFFS (CUDA-accelerated Fast Faraday Synthesis) performs Faraday rotation measure synthesis; it is particularly well-suited for performing RM synthesis on large datasets. Compared to a fast single-threaded and vectorized CPU implementation, depending on the structure and format of the data cubes, cuFFs achieves an increase in speed of up to two orders of magnitude. The code assumes that the pixels values are IEEE single precision floating points (BITPIX=-32), and the input cubes must have 3 axes (2 spatial dimensions and 1 frequency axis) with frequency axis as NAXIS1. A package is included to reformat data with individual stokes Q and U channel maps to the required format. The code supports both the HDFITS format and the standard FITS format, and is written in C with GPU-acceleration achieved using Nvidia's CUDA parallel computing platform.

[ascl:1902.011] SpecViz: 1D Spectral Visualization Tool

SpecViz interactively visualizes and analyzes 1D astronomical spectra. It reads data from FITS and ASCII tables and allows spectra to be easily plotted and examined. It supports instrument-specific data quality handling, flexible spectral units conversions, custom plotting attributes, plot annotations, tiled plots, among other features. SpecViz includes a measurement tool for spectral lines for performing and recording measurements and a model fitting capability for creating simple (e.g., single Gaussian) or multi-component models (e.g., multiple Gaussians for emission and absorption lines in addition to regions of flat continua). SpecViz is built on top of the Specutils (ascl:1902.012) Astropy-affiliated python library, providing a visual, interactive interface to the analysis capabilities in that library.

The functionality of SpecViz is now actively developed as part of Jdaviz (ascl:2307.001).

[ascl:1812.008] easyaccess: SQL command line interpreter for astronomical surveys

easyaccess facilitates access to astronomical catalogs stored in SQL Databases. It is an enhanced command line interpreter and provides a custom interface with custom commands and was specifically designed to access data from the Dark Energy Survey Oracle database, including autocompletion of tables, columns, users and commands, simple ways to upload and download tables using csv, fits and HDF5 formats, iterators, search and description of tables among others. It can easily be extended to other surveys or SQL databases. The package is written in Python and supports customized addition of commands and functionalities.

[ascl:1811.004] SEP: Source Extraction and Photometry

SEP (Source Extraction and Photometry) makes the core algorithms of Source Extractor (ascl:1010.064) available as a library of standalone functions and classes. These operate directly on in-memory arrays (no FITS files or configuration files). The code is derived from the Source Extractor code base (written in C) and aims to produce results compatible with Source Extractor whenever possible. SEP consists of a C library with no dependencies outside the standard library and a Python module that wraps the C library in a Pythonic API. The Python wrapper operates on NumPy arrays with NumPy as its only dependency. It is generated using Cython.

From Source Extractor, SEP includes background estimation, image segmentation (including on-the-fly filtering and source deblending), aperture photometry in circular and elliptical apertures, and source measurements such as Kron radius, "windowed" position fitting, and half-light radius. It also adds the following features that are not available in Source Extractor: optimized matched filter for variable noise in source extraction; circular annulus and elliptical annulus aperture photometry functions; local background subtraction in shape consistent with aperture in aperture photometry functions; exact pixel overlap mode in all aperture photometry functions; and masking of elliptical regions on images.

[ascl:1811.016] VoigtFit: Absorption line fitting for Voigt profiles

VoigtFit fits Voigt profiles to absorption lines. It fits multiple components for various atomic lines simultaneously, allowing parameters to be tied and fixed, and can automatically fit a polynomial continuum model together with the line profiles. A physical model can be used to constrain thermal and turbulent broadening of absorption lines as well as implementing molecular excitation models. The code uses a χ2 minimization approach to find the best solution and offers interactive features such as manual continuum placement locally around each line, manual masking of undesired fitting regions, and interactive definition of velocity components for various elements, improving the ease of estimating initial guesses.

[ascl:1812.004] aesop: ARC Echelle Spectroscopic Observation Pipeline

aesop (ARC Echelle Spectroscopic Observation Pipeline) analyzes echelle spectra for observations made by the Astrophysics Research Consortium (ARC) Echelle Spectrograph on the ARC 3.5 m Telescope at Apache Point Observatory. It is a high resolution spectroscopy software toolkit that picks up where the traditional IRAF reduction scripts leave off, and offers blaze function normalization by polynomial fits to observations of early-type stars, a robust least-squares normalization method, and radial velocity measurements (or offset removals) via cross-correlation with model spectra, including barycentric radial velocity calculations. It also concatenates multiple echelle orders into a simple 1D spectrum and provides approximate flux calibration.

[ascl:1812.016] Juliet: Transiting and non-transiting exoplanetary systems modelling tool

Juliet essentially serves as a wrapper of other tools, including Batman (ascl:1510.002), George (ascl:1511.015), Dynesty (ascl:1809.013) and AstroPy (ascl:1304.002), to analyze and model transits, radial-velocities, or both from multiple instruments at the same time. Using nested sampling algorithms, it performs a thorough sampling of the parameter space and a model comparison via Bayesian evidences. Juliet also fits transiting and non-transiting multi-planetary systems, and Gaussian Processes (GPs) which might share hyperparameters between the photometry and radial-velocities simultaneously (e.g., stellar rotation periods).

[ascl:1901.002] OCFit: Python package for fitting of O-C diagrams

OCFit fits and analyzes O-C diagrams using Genetic Algorithms and Markov chain Monte Carlo methods. The MC method is used to determine a very good estimation of errors of the parameters. Unlike some other fitting routines, OCFit does not need any initial values of fitted parameters. An intuitive graphic user interface is provided for ease of fitting, and nine common models of periodic O-C changes are included.

[ascl:1902.006] RPFITS: Routines for reading and writing RPFITS files

The RPFITS data file format records synthesis visibility data obtained from the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) at Narrabri, NSW. It is also used for single-dish spectral line data obtained from Parkes and Mopra, including Parkes multibeam data. RPFITS superficially resembles random group FITS, but differs in important respects, making it incompatible with standard FITS software such as FITSIO (ascl:1010.001) and FTOOLS (ascl:9912.002) and, in particular, it precludes the use of fv (ascl:1205.005). The RPFITS Fortran library contains routines for reading and writing RPFITS files. A header file, RPFITS.h, is provided to facilitate usage by C and C++ applications. Also included is rpfhdr, a utility for viewing RPFITS headers (it also works for standard FITS), and rpfex for extracting selected scans from an RPFITS file.

[ascl:1903.002] SIXTE: Simulation of X-ray Telescopes

SIXTE simulates X-Ray telescope observation; the software performs instrument performance analyses and produces simulated event files for mission and analysis studies. SIXTE strives to find a compromise between exactness of the simulation and speed. Using calibration files such as the PSF, RMF and ARF makes efficient simulations possible at comparably high speed, even though they include nonlinear effects such as pileup. Setups for some current and future missions, such as XMM-Newton and Athena, are included in the package; others can be added by the user with relatively little effort through specifying the main instrument characteristics in a flexible, human-readable XML-based format. Properties of X-ray sources to be simulated are described in a detector-independent format, i.e., the same input can be used for simulating observations with all available instruments, and the same input can also be used for simulations with the SIMX simulator. The input files are easily generated from standard data such as XSPEC (ascl:9910.005) spectral models or FITS images with tools provided with the SIXTE distribution. The input data scale well from single point sources up to very complicated setups.

[ascl:1904.010] CLEAR: CANDELS Ly-alpha Emission at Reionization processing pipeline and library

The CLEAR pipeline and library performs various tasks for the CANDELS Ly-alpha Emission at Reionization (CLEAR) experiment of deep Hubble grism observations of high-z galaxies. It interlaces images, models contamination of overlapping grism spectra, extracts source spectra, stacks the extracted source spectra, and estimates fits for sources redshifts and emission lines.

[ascl:1904.017] dfitspy: A dfits/fitsort implementation in Python

dfitspy searches and displays metadata contained in FITS files. Written in Python, it displays the results of a metadata search and is able to grep certain values of keywords inside large samples of files in the terminal. dfitspy can be used directly with the command line interface and can also be imported as a python module into other python code or the python interpreter.

[ascl:1905.025] Prospector: Stellar population inference from spectra and SEDs

Prospector conducts principled inference of stellar population properties from photometric and/or spectroscopic data. The code combine photometric and spectroscopic data rigorously using a flexible spectroscopic calibration model and infer high-dimensional stellar population properties using parameteric SFHs (with ensemble MCMC sampling). Prospector also constrains the linear combination of stellar population components that are present in a galaxy (e.g. non-parametric SFHs) using spectra and/or photometry, and fits individual stellar spectra using large interpolated grids.

[ascl:1906.007] limb-darkening: Limb-darkening coefficients generator

Limb-darkening generates limb-darkening coefficients from ATLAS and PHOENIX model atmospheres using arbitrary response functions. The code uses PyFITS (ascl:1207.009) and has several other dependencies, and produces a folder of results with descriptions of the columns contained in each file.

[ascl:1906.015] OIT: Nonconvex optimization approach to optical-interferometric imaging

In the context of optical interferometry, only undersampled power spectrum and bispectrum data are accessible, creating an ill-posed inverse problem for image recovery. Recently, a tri-linear model was proposed for monochromatic imaging, leading to an alternated minimization problem; in that work, only a positivity constraint was considered, and the problem was solved by an approximated Gauss–Seidel method.

The Optical-Interferometry-Trilinear code improves the approach on three fundamental aspects. First, the estimated image is defined as a solution of a regularized minimization problem, promoting sparsity in a fixed dictionary using either an l1 or a (re)weighted-l1 regularization term. Second, the resultant non-convex minimization problem is solved using a block-coordinate forward–backward algorithm. This algorithm is able to deal both with smooth and non-smooth functions, and benefits from convergence guarantees even in a non-convex context. Finally, the model and algorithm are generalized to the hyperspectral case, promoting a joint sparsity prior through an l2,1 regularization term.

[ascl:1907.003] pyuvdata: Pythonic interface to interferometric data sets

pyuvdata defines a pythonic interface to interferometric data sets; it supports the development of and interchange of data between calibration and foreground subtraction pipelines. It can read and write MIRIAD (ascl:1106.007), uvfits, and uvh5 files and reads CASA (ascl:1107.013) measurement sets and FHD (ascl:2205.014) visibility save files. Particular focus has been paid to supporting drift and phased array modes.

[ascl:1907.023] REVOLVER: REal-space VOid Locations from suVEy Reconstruction

REVOLVER reconstructs real space positions from redshift-space tracer data by subtracting RSD through FFT-based reconstruction (optional) and applies void-finding algorithms to create a catalogue of voids in these tracers. The tracers are normally galaxies from a redshift survey but could also be halos or dark matter particles from a simulation box. Two void-finding routines are provided. The first is based on ZOBOV (ascl:1304.005) and uses Voronoi tessellation of the tracer field to estimate the local density, followed by a watershed void-finding step. The second is a voxel-based method, which uses a particle-mesh interpolation to estimate the tracer density, and then uses a similar watershed algorithm. Input data files can be in FITS format, or ASCII- or NPY-formatted data arrays.

[ascl:1910.009] orbitize: Orbit-fitting for directly imaged objects

orbitize fits the orbits of directly-imaged objects by packaging the Orbits for the Impatient (OFTI) algorithm and a parallel-tempered Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm into a consistent API. It accepts observations in three measurement formats, which can be mixed in the same input file, generates orbits, and plots the computed orbital parameters. orbitize offers numerous ways to visualize the data, including histograms, corner plots, and orbit plots. Generated orbits can be saved in HDF5 format for future use and analysis.

[ascl:1907.025] GIST: Galaxy IFU Spectroscopy Tool

GIST (Galaxy IFU Spectroscopy Tool) provides a convenient all-in-one framework for the scientific analysis of fully reduced, (integral-field) spectroscopic data, conducting all the steps from the preparation of input data to the scientific analysis and to the production of publication-quality plots. In its basic set-up, the GIST pipeline extracts stellar kinematics, performs an emission-line analysis, and derives stellar population properties from full spectral fitting and via the measurement of absorption line-strength indices by exploiting pPXF (ascl:1210.002)and GandALF routines. The pipeline is not specific to any instrument or analysis technique, and includes a dedicated visualization routine with a sophisticated graphical user interface for fully interactive plotting of all measurements, spectra, fits, and residuals, as well as star formation histories and the weight distribution of the models.

[ascl:1908.013] BEAST: Bayesian Extinction And Stellar Tool

BEAST (Bayesian Extinction and Stellar Tool) fits the ultraviolet to near-infrared photometric SEDs of stars to extract stellar and dust extinction parameters. The stellar parameters are age (t), mass (M), metallicity (M), and distance (d). The dust extinction parameters are dust column (Av), average grain size (Rv), and mixing between type A and B extinction curves (fA).

[ascl:1909.002] MultiColorFits: Colorize and combine multiple fits images for visually aesthetic scientific plots

MultiColorFits is a tool to colorize and combine multiple fits images for making visually aesthetic scientific plots. The standard method to make color composites by combining fits images programmatically in python is to assign three images as separate red, green, and blue channels. This can produce unsatisfactory results for a variety of reasons, such as when less than three images are available, or additional images are desired to be shown. MultiColorFits breaks these limitations by allowing users to apply any color to a given image, not just red, green, or blue. Composites can then be created from an arbitrary number of images. Controls are included for stretching brightness scales with common functions.

[ascl:1910.002] PreProFit: Pressure Profile Fitter for galaxy clusters in Python

PreProFit fits the pressure profile of galaxy clusters using Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC). The software can analyze data from different sources and offers flexible parametrization for the pressure profile. PreProFit accounts for Abel integral, beam smearing, and transfer function filtering when fitting data and returns χ2, model parameters and uncertainties in addition to marginal and joint probability contours, diagnostic plots, and surface brightness radial profiles. The code can be used for analytic approximations for the beam and transfer functions for feasibility studies.

[ascl:1911.004] PypeIt: Python spectroscopic data reduction pipeline

PypeIt reduces data from echelle and low-resolution spectrometers; the code can be run in several modes of reduction that demark the level of sophistication (e.g. quick and dirty vs. MonteCarlo) and also the amount of output written to disk. It also generates numerous data products, including 1D and 2D spectra; calibration images, fits, and meta files; and quality assurance figures.

[ascl:1912.011] QSOSIM: Simulated Quasar Spectrum Generator

QSOSIM realistically simulates high-resolution quasar spectra using a set of basic parameters (magnitude, redshift, and spectral index). The simulated spectra include physical effects seen in the real data: the power-law quasar continuum, the narrow and broad emission lines, absorption by neutral hydrogen (HI) in the Lyman alpha forest, and heavy element transitions along the line of sight. The code uses empirical HI column density, redshift, and b-parameter distributions to simulate absorption in the Lyman alpha forest. All absorbers with column densities larger than log [N(HI)/cm2]>17 have heavy element absorption, for which the column densities are calculated using the plasma simulation code CLOUDY (ascl:9910.001) and the radiative transfer code CUBA. The code also simulates the clustering of the intergalactic medium along the line of sight, the proximity effect of the quasar, and the effect of the cosmic ultraviolet background. Each simulated spectrum is saved in a single FITS file in as a noiseless R=100000 spectrum, as well as a spectrum convolved with Sloan Digital Sky Survey resolution (R=10000) and realistic noise.

[submitted] PyFOSC: a pipeline toolbox for BFOSC/YFOSC long-slit spectroscopy data reduction

PyFOSC is a pipeline toolbox for long-slit spectroscopy data reduction written in Python. It can be used for FOSC (Faint Object Spectrograph and Camera) data from Xinglong/Lijiang 2-meter telescopes in China. This pipeline privodes a neat way for data pre-processing, including updating missing header fileds for BFOSC data, reducing fits file extension for YFOSC data, etc. And it makes the data reduction procedure efficient by using previously identified lamp spectra as re-identification references during wavelength calibration, and applying multiprocessing in some modules. PyFOSC also enables customization for any other long-slit spectroscopy data.

[submitted] K2CE: Kepler-K2 Cadence Events

Since early 2018, the Kepler/K2 project has been performing a uniform global reprocessing of data from K2 Campaigns 0 through 14. Subsequent K2 campaigns (C15-C19) are being processed using the same processing pipeline. One of the major benefits of the reprocessing effort is that, for the first time, short-cadence (1-min) light curves are produced in addition to the standard long-cadence (30-min) light curves. Users have been cautioned that the Kepler pipeline detrending module (PDC), developed for use on original Kepler data, has not been tailored for use on short-cadence K2 observations. Systematics due to events on fast timescales, such as thruster firings, are sometimes poorly corrected for many short-cadence targets. A Python data visualization and manipulation tool, called Kepler-K2 Cadence Events, has been developed that identifies and removes cadences associated with problematic thruster events, thus producing better light curves. Kepler-K2 Cadence Events can be used to visualize and manipulate light curve files and target pixel files from the Kepler, K2, and TESS missions. This software is available at the following NASA GitHub repository https://github.com/nasa/K2CE .

[ascl:2001.009] ORCS: Analysis engine for SITELLE spectral cubes

ORCS (Outils de Réduction de Cubes Spectraux) is an analysis engine for SITELLE spectral cubes. The software extracts integrated spectra, fits the sinc emission lines, and recalibrates data in wavelength, astrometry and flux. ORCS offers a choice between a Bayesian or a classical fitting algorithm
, and also provides automatic source detection and radial velocity correction.

[ascl:2009.001] JetSeT: Numerical modeling and SED fitting tool for relativistic jets

JetSeT reproduces radiative and accelerative processes acting in relativistic jets and fits the numerical models to observed data. This C/Python framework re-bins observed data, can define data sets, and binds to astropy tables and quantities. It can use Synchrotron Self-Compton (SSC), external Compton (EC) and EC against the CMB when defining complex numerical radiative scenarios. JetSeT can constrain the model in the pre-fitting stage based on accurate and already published phenomenological trends starting from parameters such as spectral indices, peak fluxes and frequencies, and spectral curvatures. The package fits multiwavelength SEDs using both frequentist approach and Bayesian MCMC sampling, and also provides self-consistent temporal evolution of the plasma under the effect of radiative and accelerative processes for both first order and second order (stochastic acceleration) processes.

[ascl:2003.004] scousepy: Semi-automated multi-COmponent Universal Spectral-line fitting Engine

scousepy is a Python implementation of spectral line-fitting IDL code SCOUSE (ascl:1601.003). It fits a large amount of complex astronomical spectral line data in a systematic way.

[ascl:2004.002] Tangra: Software for video photometry and astrometry

Tangra performs scientific grade data reduction of GPS time-tagged video observations, including reduction of stellar occultation light curves and astrometry of close flybys of Near Earth Objects. It offers Dark and Flat frame image correction, PSF and aperture photometry, multiple methods for deriving a background as well as extensibility via add-ins. Tangra is actively developed for Windows and the current version of the software supports UCAC2, UCAC3, UCAC4, NOMAD, PPMXL and Gaia DR2 star catalogues for astrometry. The software can perform motion-fitting for fast objects and derive a mini-normal astrometric positions. The supported video file formats are AVI, SER, ADV and AAV. Tangra can be also used with observations recorded as a sequence of FITS files. There are also versions for Linux and OS-X with more limited functionality.

[ascl:2005.002] michi2: SED and SLED fitting tool

michi2 fits combinations of arbitrary numbers of libraries/components to a given observational data. Written in C++ and Python, this chi-square fitting tool can fit a galaxy's spectral energy distribution (SED) with stellar, active galactic nuclear, dust and radio SED templates, and fit a galaxy's spectral line energy distribution (SLED) with one or more gas components using radiative transfer LVG model grid libraries.

michi2 first samples the high-dimensional parameter space (N1*N2*N3*..., where N is the number of independent templates in each library, and 1/2/3 is the ID of components) in an optimized way for a few thousand or tens of thousand times to compute the chi-square to the input observational data, then uses Python scripts to analyze the chi-square distribution and derive the best-fit, median, lower and higher 1-sigma values for each parameter in each library/component. This tool is useful for fitting larger number of templates and arbitrary combinations of libraries/components, including some constraining of one library/component onto another.

[ascl:2005.008] HiFLEx: Echelle data reduction pipeline

HiFLEx reduces echelle data taken with a single or bifurcated fiber input. It takes a FITS image file (i.e., a CCD image) and runs data reduction steps, extracts out orders from an Echelle spectrograph (regardless of separation and curvature, as long as orders are distinguishable from one-another), applies the wavelength correction, measures the radial velocity, and performs further calibration steps.

[ascl:2202.015] SPARTAN: SPectroscopic And photometRic fiTting tool for Astronomical aNalysis

SPARTAN fits the spectroscopy and photometry of distant galaxies. The code implements multiple interfaces to help in the configuration of the fitting and the inspection of the results. SPARTAN relies on pre-computed input files (such as stellar population and IGM extinction), available for download, to save time in the fitting process.

[ascl:2005.012] 2DBAT: 2D Bayesian Automated Tilted-ring fitter

2DBAT implements Bayesian fits of 2D tilted-ring models to derive rotation curves of galaxies. It performs 2D tilted-ring analysis based on a Bayesian Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) technique, thus quantifying the kinematic geometry of galaxy discs, and deriving high-quality rotation curves that can be used for mass modeling of baryons and dark matter halos.

[ascl:2005.013] qubefit: MCMC kinematic modeling

qubefit fits an observed data cube to generate a model cube from a user-defined emission model. The model cube is convolved with the observed beam, after which residuals between the convolved model and the observed data cube are minimized using a Markov chain Monte Carlo approach. qubefit also determines estimates of the uncertainty for each parameter of the model.

[ascl:2006.013] JoXSZ: Joint X-ray and SZ fitting for galaxy clusters in Python

JoXSZ jointly fits the thermodynamic profiles of galaxy clusters from both SZ and X-ray data using a Markov chain Monte Carlo fitting algorithm. It is an enhanced version of preprofit (ascl:1910.002), which fits only SZ data. JoXSZ parameterizes the pressure and electron density profile of a galaxy cluster with a given center and derives the temperature profile as the ratio of these quantities through the ideal gas law. The X-ray and SZ-based temperatures can be similar or different, which allows study of the cluster elongation along line of sight, gas clumping, or calibration uncertainties.

[ascl:2007.013] wdtools: Spectroscopic analysis of white dwarfs

wdtools characterizes the atmospheric parameters of white dwarfs using spectroscopic data. The flagship class is the generative fitting pipeline (GFP), which fits ab initio theoretical models to observed spectra in a Bayesian framework using high-speed neural networks to interpolate synthetic spectra.

[ascl:2008.001] kinesis: Kinematic modeling of clusters

Kinesis fits the internal kinematics of a star cluster with astrometry and (incomplete) radial velocity data of its members. In the most general model, the stars can be a mixture of background (contamination) and the cluster, for which the (3,3) velocity dispersion matrix and velocity gradient (i.e., dv_x/dx and dv_y/dx) are included. There are also simpler versions of the most general model and utilities to generate mock clusters and mock observations.

[ascl:2008.018] maxsmooth: Derivative constrained function fitting

maxsmooth fits derivative constrained functions (DCF) such as Maximally Smooth Functions (MSFs) to data sets. MSFs are functions for which there are no zero crossings in derivatives of order m >= 2 within the domain of interest. They are designed to prevent the loss of signals when fitting out dominant smooth foregrounds or large magnitude signals that mask signals of interest. Here "smooth" means that the foregrounds follow power law structures and do not feature turning points in the band of interest. maxsmooth uses quadratic programming implemented with CVXOPT (ascl:2008.017) to fit data subject to a fixed linear constraint, Ga <= 0, where the product Ga is a matrix of derivatives. The code tests the <= 0 constraint multiplied by a positive or negative sign and can test every available sign combination but by default, it implements a sign navigating algorithm.

[ascl:2008.022] healpy: Python wrapper for HEALPix

healpy handles pixelated data on the sphere. It is based on the Hierarchical Equal Area isoLatitude Pixelization (HEALPix) scheme and bundles the HEALPix (ascl:1107.018) C++ library. healpy provides utilities to convert between sky coordinates and pixel indices in HEALPix nested and ring schemes and find pixels within a disk, a polygon or a strip in the sky. It can apply coordinate transformations between Galactic, Ecliptic and Equatorial reference frames, apply custom rotations either to vectors or full maps, and read and write HEALPix maps to disk in FITS format. healpy also includes utilities to upgrade and downgrade the resolution of existing HEALPix maps and transform maps to Spherical Harmonics space and back using multi-threaded C++ routines, among other utilities.

[ascl:2009.010] MLG: Microlensing with Gaia

MLG simulates Gaia measurements for predicted astrometric microlensing events. It fits the motion of the lens and source simultaneously and reconstructs the 11 parameters of the lensing event. For lenses passing by multiple background sources, it also fits the motion of all background sources and the lens simultaneously. A Monte-Carlo simulation is used to determine the achievable precision of the mass determination.

[ascl:2011.028] CWITools: Tools for Cosmic Web Imager data

CWITools analyzes integral field spectroscopy data from the Palomar and Keck Cosmic Web Imagers, and can be adapted for any three-dimensional integral field spectroscopy data. The package is modular, allowing users to construct data analysis pipelines to suit their own scientific needs, and includes tools for reducing data cubes, extracting a target signal, making emission maps, spectra, and other products. It also fits emission line and radial profiles and obtains final scalar quantities such as size and luminosity, among other tasks. It also contains helper functions that can, for example, obtain the wavelength axis from a 3D header, and create an auto-populated list of nebular emission lines or sky lines.

[ascl:2012.007] EOS: Equation of State for planetary impacts

EOS is an analytical equation of state which models high pressure theory and fits well to the experimental data of ∊-Fe, SiO2, Mg2SiO4, and the Earth. The cold part of the EOS is modeled after the Varpoly EOS. The thermal part is based on a new formalism of the Gruneisen parameter, which improves behavior from earlier models and bridges the gap between elasticity and thermoelasticity. The EOS includes an expanded state model, which allows for the accurate modeling of material vapor curves.

[ascl:2012.023] HCGrid: Mapping non-uniform radio astronomy data onto a uniformly distributed grid

HCGrid maps non-uniform radio astronomy data onto a uniformly distributed grid using a convolution-based algorithm on CPU-GPU heterogeneous platforms. The package has three modules; the initialization module initializes parameters needed for the calculation process, such as setting the size of the sampling space and output resolution. The gridding module uses a parallel ordering algorithm to pre-order the sampling points based on HEALPix on the CPU platform and uses an efficient two-level lookup table to speed up the acquisition of sampling points; it then accelerates convolution by using the high parallelism of GPU and through related performance optimization strategies based on CUDA architecture to further improve the gridding performance. The third module processes the results; it visualizes the gridding and exports the final products as FITS files.

[ascl:2101.003] whereistheplanet: Predicting positions of directly imaged companions

whereistheplanet predicts the locations of directly imaged companions (mainly exoplanets and brown dwarfs) based on past orbital fits to the data. This tool helps coordinate follow-up observations to characterize their properties, as precise pointing of the instrument is often needed. It uses orbitize! (ascl:1910.009) as a backend. whereistheplanet is available as a Python API, a command line tool, and a web form at whereistheplanet.com.

[ascl:2102.001] spinOS: SPectroscopic and INterferometric Orbital Solution finder

spinOS calculates binary orbital elements. Given a set of radial velocity measurements of a spectroscopic binary and/or relative position measurement of an astrometric binary, spinOS fits an orbital model by minimizing a chi squared metric. These routines are neatly packaged in a graphical user interface, developed using tkinter, facilitating use. Minimization is achieved by default using a Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm from lmfit [ascl:1606.014]. A Markov Chain Monte Carlo option is available to sample the posterior probability distribution in order to estimate errors on the orbital elements.

[ascl:2101.011] Nigraha: Find and evaluate planet candidates from TESS light curves

Nigraha identifies and evaluates planet candidates from TESS light curves. Using a combination of high signal to noise ratio (SNR) shallow transits, supervised machine learning, and detailed vetting, the neural network-based pipeline identifies planet candidates missed by prior searches. The pipeline runs in four stages. It first performs period finding using the Transit Least Squares (TLS) package and runs sector by sector to build a per-sector catalog. It then transforms the flux values in .fits lightcurve files to global/local views and write out the output in .tfRecords files, builds a model on training data, and saves a checkpoint. Finally, it loads a previously saved model to generate predictions for new sectors. Nigraha provides helper scripts to generate candidates in new sectors, thus allowing others to perform their own analyses.

[ascl:2102.028] PyAutoFit: Classy probabilistic programming

PyAutoFit supports advanced statistical methods such as massively parallel non-linear search grid-searches, chaining together model-fits and sensitivity mapping. It is a Python-based probabilistic programming language which composes and fits models using a range of Bayesian inference libraries, such as emcee (ascl:1303.002) and dynesty (ascl:1809.013). It performs model composition and customization, outputting results, model-specific visualization and posterior analysis. Built for big-data analysis, results are output as a database which can be loaded after model-fitting is complete.

[ascl:2102.029] BALRoGO: Bayesian Astrometric Likelihood Recovery of Galactic Objects

BALRoGO (Bayesian Astrometric Likelihood Recovery of Galactic Objects) handles data from the Gaia space mission. It extracts galactic objects such as globular clusters and dwarf galaxies from data contaminated by interlopers using a combination of Bayesian and non-Bayesian approaches. It fits proper motion space, surface density, and the object center. It also provides confidence regions for the color-magnitude diagram and parallaxes.

[ascl:2102.030] GLEAM: Galaxy Line Emission and Absorption Modeling

GLEAM (Galaxy Line Emission and Absorption Modeling) fits Gaussian models to emission and absorption lines in large samples of 1D galaxy spectra. The code is tailored to work well without much human interaction on optical and infrared spectra in a wide range of instrument setups and signal-to-noise regimes. gleam will create a fits table with Gaussian line measurements, including central wavelength, width, height and amplitude, as well as estimates for the continuum under the line and the line flux, luminosity, equivalent width and velocity width. gleam will also, optionally, make plots of the spectrum with fitted lines overlaid.

[ascl:2105.002] PDM2: Phase Dispersion Minimization

PDM2 (Phase Dispersion Minimization) ddetermines periodic components of data sets with erratic time intervals, poor coverage, non-sine-wave curve shape, and/or large noise components. Essentially a least-squares fitting technique, the fit is relative to the mean curve as defined by the means of each bin; the code simultaneously obtains the best least-squares light curve and the best period. PDM2 allows an arbitrary degree of smoothing and provides improved curve fits, suppressed subharmonics, and beta function statistics.

[ascl:2103.010] TransitFit: Exoplanet transit fitting package for multi-telescope datasets

TransitFit fits exoplanetary transit light-curves for transmission spectroscopy studies. The code uses nested sampling for efficient and robust multi-epoch, multi-wavelength fitting of transit data obtained from one or more telescopes. TransitFit allows per-telescope detrending to be performed simultaneously with parameter fitting, including the use of user-supplied detrending alogorithms. Host limb darkening can be fitted either independently ("uncoupled") for each filter or combined ("coupled") using prior conditioning from the PHOENIX stellar atmosphere models. For this, TransitFit uses the Limb Darkening Toolkit (ascl:1510.003) together with filter profiles, including user-supplied filter profiles.

[ascl:2103.026] PyPion: Post-processing code for PION simulation data

PyPion reads in Silo (ascl:2103.025) data files from PION (ascl:2103.024) simulations and plots the data. This library works for 1D, 2D, and 3D data files and for any amount of nested-grid levels. The scripts contained in PyPion save the options entered into the command line when the python script is run, open the silo file and save all of the important header variables, open the directory in the silo (or vtk, or fits) file and save the requested variable data (eg. density, temp, etc.), and set up the plotting function and the figure.

[ascl:2104.021] cmblensplus: Cosmic microwave background tools

cmblensplus reconstructs lensing potential, cosmic bi-refringence, and patchy reionization from cosmic microwave background anisotropies (CMB) in full and flat sky. This Fortran wrapper for Python also includes modules for delensing and bi-spectrum calculations. cmblensplus contains a module of basic routines such as analytic calculation of delensed B-mode spectrum and lensing bispectrum. Two additional main modules are for curved sky and flat sky analyses, and measure lensing, bi-refringence, patchy tau, bias-hardening, bi-spectrum, delensing and analytic reconstruction normalization. The package also contains simple Python utility and demonstration scripts. cmblensplus uses FFTW (ascl:1201.015), HEALPix (ascl:1107.018), LAPACK (ascl:2104.020), CFITSIO (ascl:1010.001), and LensPix (ascl:1102.025).

[ascl:2104.017] Bagpipes: Bayesian Analysis of Galaxies for Physical Inference and Parameter EStimation

Bagpipes generates realistic model galaxy spectra and fits these to spectroscopic and photometric observations.

[ascl:2104.010] OpTool: Command-line driven tool for creating complex dust opacities

Optool computes dust opacities and scattering matrices, for specific grain sizes or averaged over size distributions. It is derived from OpacityTool (ascl:2104.009) and implements the Distribution of Hollow Spheres (DHS) statistical method to approximate irregular and low porosity grains. Mie theory is available as a limiting case of DHS. It also implements the Tazaki Modified Mean Field Theory (MMF) to treat fractal and highly porous aggregates. The refractive index data for many astronomically relevant materials are compiled into the code, and external refractive index data can be used as well. A compact and intuitive command line interface makes it easy to construct complex particles on the fly. Available output formats are ASCII and FITS, including files directly readable by RADMC-3D (ascl:1202.015). A python interface to the FORTRAN program is included.

[ascl:2104.012] Mo'Astro: MongoDB framework for observational astronomy

Mo’Astro is a MongoDB framework for observational astronomy pipelines. Mo'Astro sets up a MongoDB collection of a survey's image set, keeping FITS metadata readily available, and providing a place in the reduction pipeline to persist metadata. Mo’Astro also provides facilities for batch processing images with the Astromatic tool suite, and for hosting a local 2MASS star catalog with spatial-search built-in.

[ascl:2104.016] Skyoffset: Sky offset optimization and mosaicing toolkit

Skyoffset makes wide-field mosaics of FITS images. Principal features of Skyoffset are the ability to produce a mosaic with a continuous background level by solving for sky offsets that minimize the intensity differences between overlapping images, and its handling of hierarchies, making it ideal for optimizing backgrounds in large mosaics made with array cameras (such as CFHT’s MegaCam and WIRCam). Skyoffset uses MongoDB in conjunction with Mo’Astro (ascl:2104.012) to store metadata about each mosaic and SWarp (ascl:1010.068) to handle image combination and propagate uncertainty maps. Skyoffset can be integrated into Python pipelines and offers a convenient API and metadata storage in MongoDB. It was developed originally for the Andromeda Optical and Infrared Disk Survey (ANDROIDS).

[ascl:2104.013] pfits: PSRFITS-format data file processor

pfits reads, manipulates and processes PSRFITS format search- and fold-mode pulsar astronomy data files. It summerizes the header information in a PSRFITS file, reproduces some of fv's (ascl:1205.005) functionality, and allows the user to obtain detailed information about the file. It can determine whether the data is search mode or fold mode and plot the profile, color scale image, frequency time, sum in frequency, and 4-pol data, as appropriate. pfits can also read in a search mode file, dedisperses, and frequency-sums (if requested), and offers an option to output multiple dispersed data files, among other tasks.

[ascl:2104.030] lofti_gaiaDR2: Orbit fitting with Gaia astrometry

Lofti_gaia fits orbital parameters for one wide stellar binary relative to the other, when both objects are resolved in Gaia DR2. It takes as input only the Gaia DR2 source id of the two components, and their masses. It retrieves the relevant parameters from the Gaia archive, computes observational constraints for them, and fits orbital parameters to those measurements. It assumes the two components are bound in an elliptical orbit.

[ascl:2105.010] ZOGY: Python implementation of proper image subtraction

ZOGY performs optimal image subtraction; the code is designed specifically for the MeerLICHT and BlackGEM pipelines, but should also be useful to apply to images of other telescopes. The module accepts a new and a reference FITS image, runs SExtractor (ascl:1010.064) on them, and finds their WCS solution using Astrometry.net (ascl:1208.001). ZOGY then uses PSFex (ascl:1301.001) to infer the position-dependent PSFs of the images and SWarp (ascl:1010.068) to map the reference image to the new image and performs optimal image subtraction. This produces the subtracted image, the significance image, the corrected significance image, and the PSF photometry image and associated error image. The inferred PSFs are also used to extract optimal photometry of all sources detected by SExtractor.

[ascl:2105.012] orvara: Orbits from Radial Velocity, Absolute, and/or Relative Astrometry

orvara (Orbits from Radial Velocity, Absolute, and/or Relative Astrometry) fits orbits of bright stars and their faint companions (exoplanets, brown dwarfs, white dwarfs, and low-mass stars). It can use any combination of radial velocity, relative astrometry, and absolute astrometry data and offers a variety of plots from the orbital fit, such as the radial velocity orbit over an extended time baseline, position angle between two companions, and a density plot of the predicted position at a chosen epoch. orvara can also check convergence of fitted parameters in the HDU1 extension, save the results from the fitted and inferred parameters from the HDU1 extension, and plot the results of a three-body or multiple-body fit.

[ascl:2105.017] Pyrat Bay: Python Radiative Transfer in a Bayesian framework

Pyrat Bay computes radiative-transfer spectra and fits exoplanet atmospheric properties, and is an efficient, user-friendly Python tool. The package offers transmission or emission spectra of exoplanet transit or eclipses respectively and forward-model or retrieval calculations. The radiative-transfer includes opacity sources from line-by-line molecular absorption, collision-induced absorption, Rayleigh scattering absorption, and more, including Gray aerosol opacities. Pyrat Bay's Bayesian (MCMC) posterior sampling of atmospheric parameters includes molecular abundances, temperature profile, pressure-radius, and Rayleigh and cloud properties.

[ascl:2105.022] PFITS: Spectra data reduction

PFITS performs data reduction of spectra, including dark removal and flat fielding; this software was a standard 1983 Reticon reduction package available at the University of Texas. It was based on the plotting program PCOSY by Gary Ferland, and in 1985 was updated by Andrew McWilliam.

[ascl:2106.004] crowdsource: Crowded field photometry pipeline

crowdsource removes a rough sky (the median), find the brighter peaks and fits these sources, computes centroids, and then computes an improved PSF. With this model of the image, the code then iteratively subtracts it and recomputes the median to get a better sky estimate, finds fainter peaks, and calculates a better PSF. crowdsource performs at least four iterations, evaluates the results, and continues until certain thresholds are met. Once the iterative passes are complete, it makes one last pass. If no sources are detected and positions do not vary, it performs photometry for the existing list of stellar positions.

[ascl:2108.024] iminuit: Jupyter-friendly Python interface for C++ MINUIT2

iminuit is a Jupyter-friendly Python interface for the Minuit2 C++ library maintained by CERN's ROOT team. It can be used as a general robust function minimization method, but is most commonly used for likelihood fits of models to data, and to get model parameter error estimates from likelihood profile analysis.

[ascl:2106.012] StarcNet: Convolutional neural network for classifying galaxy images into morphological classes

StarcNet (STAR Cluster classification NETwork) classifies star clusters from galaxy images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST); it uses a convolutional neural network (CNN) trained to classify five-band galaxy images into four morphological classes. Written in PyTorch, StarcNet runs using mosaics (.fits files with the galaxy photometric information) and catalogs (.tab files with object coordinates), and includes the option to also download the galaxy mosaics from a single .tar.gz file per galaxy (as from the Legacy ExtraGalactic UV Survey).

[ascl:2106.017] redvsblue: Quasar and emission line redshift fitting

redvsblue measures a precise redshift given a broad redshift prior. For each emission line or the full spectrum, the software runs a coarse chi2 scan as a function of redshift, using the input PCA+broadband Legendre polynomials, and finds three local minima, and does a finer chi2 scan in each minima. It then defines the global PCA redshift (ZPCA) from the best minimum of the three; ZPCA is a redshift estimator biased toward the computation of the PCA. The redshift of the line (ZLINE) is defined from the maximum of the best-fit model of the line. ZLINE is a redshift estimator un-biased toward the velocity of the line, but can be biased with respect to the cosmological redshift. The output is a FITS file, with one HDU per redshift type.

[ascl:2106.031] BiHalofit: Fitting formula of non-linear matter bispectrum

BiHalofit fits the matter bispectrum in the nonlinear regime calibrated by high-resolution cosmological N-body simulations of 41 cold dark matter models around the Planck 2015 best-fit parameters. The parameterization is similar to that in Halofit (ascl:1402.032). The simulation volume is sufficiently large to cover almost all measurable triangle bispectrum configurations in the universe, and the function is calibrated using one-loop perturbation theory at large scales. BiHaloFit predicts the weak-lensing bispectrum and will assist current and future weak-lensing surveys and cosmic microwave background lensing experiments.

[ascl:2106.040] IRAGNSEP: Spectral energy distribution fitting code

iragnsep performs IR SED fits separated into AGN and galaxy contributions, and measures host galaxy properties free of AGN contamination. The advantage of iragnsep is that, in addition to fitting observed broadband photometric fluxes, it also incorporates IR spectra in the fits which, if available, improves the robustness of the galaxy-AGN separation. For the galaxy component, iragnsep uses a library of galaxy templates. In terms of the AGN contribution, if the input dataset is a mixture of spectral and photometric data, iragnsep uses a combination of power-laws for the AGN continuum, and some broad features for the silicate emission. If instead the dataset contains photometric data alone, the AGN contribution is accounted for by using a library of AGN templates. The advanced fitting techniques used by iragnsep combined with the powerful model comparison tests allows iragnsep to provide a statistically robust interpretation of IR SEDs in terms of AGN-galaxy contributions, even when the AGN contribution is highly diluted by the host galaxy emission.

[ascl:2306.025] ALminer: ALMA archive mining and visualization toolkit

ALminer queries, analyzes, and visualizes the ALMA Science Archive. Users can programmatically query the archive for positions, target names, or other keywords in the archive metadata (such as proposal title, abstract, or scientific category). ALminer's plotting routines allow the query results to be visualized, and its analysis functions allow users to filter the results and check whether certain frequencies of interest are covered in the queried observations. The code also allows users to directly download ALMA data products in FITS format and/or the raw data that can be used for manual image processing. ALminer has been designed to make mining the ALMA archive as simple as possible, while being flexible to be customized according to the user's scientific interests. The code is released with a detailed tutorial Jupyter notebook, introducing ALminer's common functions as well as some of its more advanced options.

[ascl:2107.015] shapelens: Astronomical image analysis and shape estimation framework

The shapelens C++ library provides ways to load galaxies and star images from FITS files and catalogs and to analyze their morphology. The main purpose of this library is to make several weak-lensing shape estimators publicly available. All of them are based on the moments of the brightness distribution. The estimators include DEIMOS, for analytic deconvolution in moment space, DEIMOSElliptical, a practical implemention of DEIMOS with an automatically matched elliptical weight function, DEIMOSCircular, which is identical to DEIMOSElliptical but with a circular weight function, and others.

[ascl:2107.010] SpArcFiRe: SPiral ARC FInder and REporter

SpArcFiRe takes as input an image of a galaxy in FITS, JPG, or PNG format, identifies spiral arms, and extracts structural information about the spiral arms. Pixels in each arm segment are listed, enabling image analysis on each segment. The automated method also performs a least-squares fit of a logarithmic spiral arc to the pixels in that segment, giving per-arc parameters, such as the pitch angle, arm segment length, and location, and outputs images showing the steps SpArcFire took to detect arm segments.

[ascl:2107.025] MCPM: Modified CPM method

MCPM extracts K2 photometry in dense stellar regions; the code is a modification and extension of the K2-CPM package (ascl:2107.024), which was developed for less-crowded fields. MCPM uses the pixel response function together with accurate astrometric grids, combining signals from a few pixels, and simultaneously fits for an astrophysical model to produce extracted more precise K2 photometry.

[ascl:2107.026] K2mosaic: Mosaic Kepler pixel data

K2mosaic stitches the postage stamp-sized pixel masks obtained by NASA's Kepler and K2 missions together into CCD-sized mosaics and movies. The command-line tool's principal use is to take a set of Target Pixel Files (TPF) and turn them into more traditional FITS image files -- one per CCD channel and per cadence. K2mosaic can also be used to create animations from these mosaics. The mosaics produced by K2mosaic also makes the analysis of certain Kepler/K2 targets, such as clusters and asteroids, easier. Moreover such mosaics are useful to reveal the context of single-star observations, e.g., they enable users to check for the presence of instrumental noise or nearby bright objects.

[ascl:2201.004] FitsMap: Interactive astronomical image and catalog data visualizer

FitsMap visualizes astronomical image and catalog data. Implemented in Python, the software is a simple, lightweight tool, requires only a simple web server, and can scale to over gigapixel images with tens of millions of sources. Further, the web-based visualizations can be viewed performantly on mobile devices.

[ascl:2108.010] FIREFLY: Chi-squared minimization full spectral fitting code

FIREFLY (Fitting IteRativEly For Likelihood analYsis) derives stellar population properties of stellar systems, whether observed galaxy or star cluster spectra or model spectra from simulations. The code fits combinations of single-burst stellar population models to spectroscopic data following an iterative best-fitting process controlled by the Bayesian Information Criterion without applying priors. Solutions within a statistical cut are retained with their weight, which is arbitrary. No additive or multiplicative polynomia are used to adjust the spectral shape and no regularization is imposed. This fitting freedom allows mapping of the effect of intrinsic spectral energy distribution (SED) degeneracies, such as age, metallicity, dust reddening on stellar population properties, and quantifying the effect of varying input model components on such properties.

[ascl:2108.020] DBSP_DRP: DBSP Data Reduction Pipeline

DBSP_DRP reduces data from the Palomar spectrograph DBSP. Built on top of PypeIt (ascl:1911.004), it automates the reduction, fluxing, telluric correction, and combining of the red and blue sides of one night's data. The pipeline also provides several GUIs for easier control of the reduction, with one for selecting which data to reduce, and verifying the correctness of FITS headers in an editable table. Another GUI manually places traces for a sort of manually "forced" spectroscopy with the -m option, and after manually placing traces, manually selects sky regions and tweaks the FWHM of the manual traces.

[ascl:2109.010] Frankenstein: Flux reconstructor

Frankenstein (frank) fits the 1D radial brightness profile of an interferometric source given a set of visibilities. It uses a Gaussian process that performs the fit in <1 minute for a typical protoplanetary disc continuum dataset. Frankenstein can perform a fit in 2 ways, by running the code directly from the terminal or using the code as a Python module.

[ascl:2109.012] STAR-MELT: STellar AccrRetion Mapping with Emission Line Tomography

STAR-MELT extracts and identifies emission lines from FITS files by matching to a compiled reference database of lines. Line profiles are fitted and quantified, allowing for calculations of physical properties across each individual observation. Temporal variations in lines can readily be displayed and quantified. STAR-MELT is also useful for different applications of spectral analysis where emission line identification is required. Standard data formats for spectra are automatically compatible, with user-defined custom formats also available. Any reference database (atomic or molecular) can also be used for line identification.

[ascl:2109.017] HTOF: Astrometric solutions for Hipparcos and Gaia intermediate data

HTOF parses the intermediate data from Hipparcos and Gaia and fits astrometric solutions to those data. It computes likelihoods and parameter errors in line with the catalog and can reproduce five, seven, and nine (or higher) parameter fits to their astrometry.

[ascl:2112.008] MISTTBORN: MCMC Interface for Synthesis of Transits, Tomography, Binaries, and Others of a Relevant Nature

MISTTBORN can simultaneously fit multiple types of data within an MCMC framework. It handles photometric transit/eclipse, radial velocity, Doppler tomographic, or individual line profile data, for an arbitrary number of datasets in an arbitrary number of photometric bands for an arbitrary number of planets and allows the use of Gaussian process regression to handle correlated noise in photometric or Doppler tomographic data. The code can include dilution due to a nearby unresolved star in the transit fits, and an additional line component due to another star or scattered sun/moonlight in Doppler tomographic or line profile fits. It can also be used for eclipsing binary fits, including a secondary eclipse and radial velocities for both stars. MISTTBORN produces diagnostic plots showing the data and best-fit models and the associated code MISTTBORNPLOTTER produces publication-quality plots and tables.

[ascl:2110.007] PISCOLA: Python for Intelligent Supernova-COsmology Light-curve Analysis

PISCOLA (Python for Intelligent Supernova-COsmology Light-curve Analysis) fits supernova light curves and corrects them in a few lines of code. It uses Gaussian Processes to estimate rest-frame light curves of transients without needing an underlying light-curve template. The user can add filters, calculates the light-curves parameters, and obtain transmission functions for the observed filters and the Bessell filters. The correction process can be applied with default settings to obtain restframe light curves and light-curve parameters. PISCOLA can plot the SN light curves, filter transmission functions, light-curves fits results, the mangling function for a given phase, and includes several utilities that can, for example, convert fluxes to magnitudes and magnitudes to fluxes, and trim leading and trailing zeros from a 1-D array or sequence.

[ascl:2110.022] XookSuut: Model circular and noncircular flows on 2D velocity maps

XookSuut models circular and noncircular flows on resolved velocity maps. The code performs nonparametric fits to derive kinematic models without assuming analytical functions on the different velocity components of the models. It recovers the circular and radial motions in galaxies in dynamical equilibrium and can derive the noncircular motions induced by oval distortions, such as that produced by stellar bars. XookSuut explores the full space of parameters on a N-dimensional space to derive their mean values; this combined method efficiently recovers the constant parameters and the different kinematic components.

[ascl:2111.006] prose: FITS images processing pipeline

prose provides pipelines for performing common tasks, such as automated calibration, reduction and photometry, and makes building custom pipelines easy. The prose framework is instrument-agnostic and makes constructing pipelines easy. It offers a wide range of implemented building blocks and also allows users to define their own.

[submitted] Data modelling approaches to astronomical data - Mapping large spectral line data cubes to dimensional data models

As a new generation of large-scale telescopes are expected to produce single data products in the range of hundreds of GBs to multiple TBs, different approaches to I/O efficient data interaction and extraction need to be investigated and made available to researchers. This will become increasingly important as the downloading and distribution of TB scale data products will become unsustainable, and researchers will have to take their processing analysis to the data. We present a methodology to extract 3 dimensional spatial-spectral data from dimensionally modelled tables in Parquet format on a Hadoop system. The data is loaded into the Parquet tables from FITS cube files using a dedicated process. We compare the performance of extracting data using the Apache Spark parallel compute framework on top of the Parquet-Hadoop ecosystem with data extraction from the original source files on a shared file system. We have found that the Spark-Parquet-Hadoop solution provides significant performance benefits, particularly in a multi user environment. We present a detailed analysis of the single and multi-user experiments conducted and also discuss the benefits and limitations of the platform used for this study.

[submitted] DIPol-UF: Remote control software for DIPol-UF polarimeter

DIPol-UF provides tools for remote control and operation of DIPol-UF, an optical (BVR) imaging CCD polarimeter. The project contains libraries that handle low-level interoperation with ANDOR SDK (provided by the CCD manufacturer), communication with stepper motors (which perform plate rotations), FITS file serialization/deserialization, over-network communication between different system components (each CCD is connected to a standalone PC), as well as provide GUI (built with WPF).

[ascl:2112.002] QUESTFIT: Fitter for mid-infrared galaxy spectra

QUESTFIT fit the Spitzer mid-infrared spectra of the QUEST (Quasar ULIRG and Evolution STudy) sample. It uses two PAH templates atop an extincted and absorbed continuum model to fit the mid-IR spectra of galaxies that are heavily-absorbed. It also fits AGN with silicate models. The current version of QUESTFIT is optimized for processing spectra from the CASSIS (Combined Atlas of Sources with Spitzer IRS Spectra) portal to produce PAH fluxes for heavily absorbed sources.

[ascl:2112.009] AsteroGaP: Asteroid Gaussian Processes

The Bayesian-based Gaussian Process model AsteroGaP (Asteroid Gaussian Processes) fits sparsely-sampled asteroid light curves. By utilizing a more flexible Gaussian Process framework for modeling asteroid light curves, it is able to represent light curves in a periodic but non-sinusoidal manner.

[ascl:2202.008] TERRA: Transit detection code

TERRA (Transiting Exoearth Robust Reduction Algorithm) identifies and removes instrumental noise in Kepler photometry. This transit detection code is optimized to detect small planets around photometrically quiet stars. TERRA calculates photometry in the time domain, combs the calibrated photometry for periodic, box-shaped signals, fits promising signals, and rejects signals inconsistent with exoplanet transits.

[ascl:2112.020] BayesicFitting: Model fitting and Bayesian evidence calculation package

BayesicFitting fits models to data. Data in this context means a set of (measured) points x and y. The model provides some (mathematical) relation between the x and y. Fitting adapts the model such that certain criteria are optimized. The BayesicFitting toolbox also determines whether one model fits the data better than another, making the toolbox particularly powerful. The package consists of more than 100 Python classes, of which one third are model classes. Another third are fitters in one guise or another along with additional tools, and the remaining third is used for Nested Sampling.

[ascl:2201.010] statmorph: Non-parametric morphological diagnostics of galaxy images

statmorph calculates non-parametric morphological diagnostics of galaxy images (e.g., Gini-M_{20} and CAS statistics), and fits 2D Sérsic profiles. Given a background-subtracted image and a corresponding segmentation map indicating the source(s) of interest, statmorph calculates the following morphological statistics for each source:
- Gini-M20 statistics;
- Concentration, Asymmetry and Smoothness (CAS) statistics;
- Multimode, Intensity and Deviation (MID) statistics;
- outer asymmetry and shape asymmetry;
- Sérsic index; and,
- several shape and size measurements associated to the above statistics, such as ellipticity, Petrosian radius, and half-light radius, among others.

[ascl:2201.014] nProFit: n-Profile Fitting tool

nProFit analyzes surface brightness profiles. It obtains the best-fit structural, scale, and shape parameters of star clusters in Hubble Space Telescope images of nearby galaxies. The code fits dynamical models and can derive physically-relevant parameters. Among these are central volume and luminosity densities, total masses and luminosities, central velocity dispersions, core radius, half-light radius, tidal radius, and binding energy.

[ascl:2208.010] FFD: Flare Frequency Distribution

FFD (Flare Frequency Distribution) fits power-laws to FFDs. FFDs relate the frequency (i.e., occurrence rate) of flares to their energy, peak flux, photometric equivalent width, or other parameters. This module was created to handle disparate datasets between which the flare detection limit varies; in essence, the number of flares detected is treated as following a Poisson distribution while the flare energies are treated as following a power law.

[ascl:2202.001] GA Galaxy: Interacting galaxies model fitter

GA Galaxy fits models of interacting galaxies to synthetic data using a genetic algorithm and custom fitness function. The genetic algorithm is real-coded and uses a mixed Gaussian kernel for mutation. The fitness function incorporates 1.) a direct pixel-to-pixel comparison between the target and model images and 2.) a comparison of the degree of tidal distortion present in the target and model image such that target-model pairs which are similarly distorted will have a higher relative fitness. The genetic algorithm is written in Python 2.7 while the simulation code (SPAM: Stellar Particle Animation Module) is written in Fortran 90.

[ascl:2202.018] Sculptor: Interactive modeling of astronomical spectra

Sculptor manipulates, models and analyzes spectroscopic data; the code facilitates reproducible scientific results and easy to inspect model fits. A built-in graphical user interface around LMFIT (ascl:1606.014) offers interactive control to set up and combine multiple spectral models to fully fit the spectrum of choice. Alternatively, all core functionality can be scripted to facilitate the design of spectral fitting and analysis pipelines.

[ascl:2207.031] BANZAI: Beautiful Algorithms to Normalize Zillions of Astronomical Images

BANZAI (Beautiful Algorithms to Normalize Zillions of Astronomical Images) processes raw data taken from Las Cumbres Observatory and produces science quality data products. It is capable of reducing single or multi-extension fits files. For historical data, BANZAI can also reduce the data cubes that were produced by the Sinistro cameras.

[ascl:2203.013] PetroFit: Petrosian properties calculator and galaxy light profiles fitter

PetroFit calculates Petrosian properties, such as radii and concentration indices; it also fits galaxy light profiles. The package, built on Photutils (ascl:1609.011), includes tools for performing accurate photometry, segmentations, Petrosian properties, and fitting.

[ascl:2203.016] MaNGA-DRP: MaNGA Data Reduction Pipeline

The MaNGA Data Reduction Pipeline (DRP) processes the raw data to produce flux calibrated, sky subtracted, coadded data cubes from each of the individual exposures for a given galaxy. The DRP consists of two primary parts: the 2d stage that produces flux calibrated fiber spectra from raw individual exposures, and the 3d stage that combines multiple flux calibrated exposures with astrometric information to produce stacked data cubes. These science-grade data cubes are then processed by the MaNGA Data Analysis Pipeline (ascl:2203.017), which measures the shape and location of various spectral features, fits stellar population models, and performs a variety of other analyses necessary to derive astrophysically meaningful quantities from the calibrated data cubes.

[ascl:2203.021] MG-MAMPOSSt: Test gravity with the mass profiles of galaxy clusters

MG-MAMPOSSt extends the MAMPOSSt code (ascl:2203.020), which performs Bayesian fits of models of mass and velocity anisotropy profiles to the distribution of tracers in projected phase space, to handle modified gravity models and constrain its parameters. It implements two distinct types of gravity modifications: general chameleon (including $f(\mathcal{R})$ models), and beyond Horndeski gravity (Vainshtein screening). MG-MAMPOSSt efficently explores the parameter space either by computing the likelihood over a multi-dimensional grid of points or by performing a simple Metropolis-Hastings MCMC. The code requires a Fortran90 compiler or higher and makes use of the getdist package (ascl:1910.018) to plot the marginalized distributions in the MCMC mode.

[ascl:2204.003] legacystamps: Retrieve DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys cutouts

The Python module legacystamps provides easy retrieval, both standalone and scripted, of FITS and JPEG cutouts from the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys through URLs provided by the Legacy Survey viewer.

[ascl:2204.008] RMNest: Bayesian approach to measuring Faraday rotation and conversion in radio signals

RMNest directly fits the Stokes Q and U (and V) spectra of a radio signal to measure the effects of Faraday rotation (or conversion) induced by propagation through a magnetized plasma along the line of sight. The software makes use of the Bayesian Inference Library (Bilby; ascl:1901.011) as an interface to the dynesty (ascl:1809.013) nested sampling algorithm.

[ascl:2206.021] PyCASSO2: Stellar population and emission line fits in integral field spectra

PyCASSO runs the STARLIGHT code (ascl:1108.006) in integral field spectra (IFS). Cubes from various instruments are supported, including PMAS/PPAK (CALIFA), MaNGA, GMOS and MUSE. Emission lines can be measured using DOBBY, which is included in the package. The package also includes tools for IFS cubes analysis and plotting.

[ascl:2205.001] PMOIRED: Parametric Modeling of Optical Interferometric Data

PMOIRED models astronomical spectro-interferometric data stored in the OIFITS format. Parametric modeling is used to describe the observed scene as blocks such as disks, rings and Gaussians which can be combined and their parameters linked. It includes plotting, least-square fitting and bootstrapping estimation of uncertainties. For spectroscopic instruments (such as GRAVITY), tools are provided to model spectral lines and correct spectra for telluric lines.

[ascl:2207.006] MultiModes: Efficiently analyze pulsating stars

MultiModes extracts the most significant frequencies of a sample of classical pulsating stars. The code takes a directory with light curves and initial parameters as input. For every light curve, the code calculates the frequencies spectrum, or periodogram, with the Fast Lomb Scargle algorithm, extracts the higher amplitude peak, and evaluates whether it is a real signal or noise. It fits frequency, amplitude, and phase through non-linear optimization, using a multisine function. This function is redefined with the new calculated parameters. MultiModes then does a simultaneous fit of a number of peaks (20 by default), subtracts them from the original signal, and goes back to the beginning of the loop with the residual, repeating the same process until the stop criterion is reached. After that, the code can filter suspicious spurious frequencies, those of low amplitude below the Rayleigh resolution, and possible combined frequencies.

[ascl:2205.014] FHD: Fast Holographic Deconvolution

FHD is an open-source imaging algorithm for radio interferometers and is written in IDL. The three main use-cases for FHD are efficient image deconvolution for general radio astronomy, fast-mode Epoch of Reionization analysis, and simulation. FHD inputs beam models, calibration files, and sky model catalogs and requires input data to be in uvfits format.

[ascl:2205.025] simulateSearch: High-time resolution data sets simulations for radio telescopes

simulateSearch simulates high time-resolution data in radio astronomy. The code is built around producing multiple binary data files that contain information on the radiometer noise and sources that are being simulated. These binary data files subsequently get combined and output PSRFITS
search mode files produced. The PSRFITS files can be processed using standard pulsar software packages such as PRESTO (ascl:1107.017).

[ascl:2206.008] Craterstats2: Planetary surface dating from crater size-frequency distribution measurements

Craterstats2 plots crater counts and determining surface ages. The software plots isochrons in cumulative, differential, R-plot and Hartmann presentations, and makes isochron fits to both cumulative and differential data. Hartmann-style piecewise production functions may also be used. A Python implementation of the software, Craterstats3, is also available.

[ascl:2206.011] IFSCube: Analyze and process integral field spectroscopy data cubes

IFSCube performs analysis tasks in data cubes of integral field spectroscopy. It contains routines for fitting spectral features in 1D spectra and data cubes and rotation models to velocity fields; it also contains a routine that inspects the fit results. Though originally intended to make user scripts more concise, analysis can also be performed on the fly by using an interactive interpreter such as ipython. By default, IFSCube assumes data are in the Flexible Image Transport System (FITS) standard, but the package can be modified easily to allow use of other data formats.

[ascl:2206.020] CCDLAB: FITS image viewer and data reducer

CCDLAB provides graphical user interface functionality for FITS image viewing and data reduction based on the JPFITS FITS-file interface. It can view, manipulate, and save FITS primary image data and image extensions, view and manipulate FITS image headers, and view FITS Bintable extensions. The code enables batch processing, viewing, and saving of FITS images and searching FITS files on disk. CCDLAB also provides general image reduction techniques, source detection and characterization, and can create World Coordinate Solutions automatically or manually for FITS images.

[submitted] fastrometry: Fast world coordinate solution solver

Fastrometry is a Python implementation of the fast world coordinate solution solver for the FITS standard astronomical image. When supplied with the approximate field center (+-25%) and the approximate field scale (+-10%) of the telescope and detector system the astronomical image is from, fastrometry provides WCS solutions almost instantaneously. The algorithm is also originally implemented with parallelism enabled in the Windows FITS image processor and viewer CCDLAB (ascl:2206.021).

[submitted] JPFITS (C# .Net FITS File Interaction)

FITS File interaction written in Visual Studio C# .Net.

JPFITS is not based upon any other implementation and is written from the ground-up, consistent with the FITS standard, designed to interact with FITS files as object-oriented structures.

JPFITS provides functionality to interact with FITS images and binary table extensions, as well as providing common mathematical methods for the manipulation of data, data reductions, profile fitting, photometry, etc.

JPFITS also implements object-oriented classes for Point Source Extraction, World Coordinate Solutions (WCS), WCS automated field solving, FITS Headers and Header Keys, etc.

The automatic world coordinate solver is based on the trigonometric algorithm as described here:

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1538-3873/ab7ee8

All function parameters, methods, properties, etc., are coded with XML descriptions which will function with Visual Studio. Other code editors may or may not read the XML files.

Everything which is reasonable to parallelize in order to benefit from the computation speed increase for multi-threaded systems has been done so. In all such cases function options are given in order to specify the use of parallelism or not. Generally, most image manipulation functions are highly amenable to parallelism. No parallelism is forced, i.e., any code which may execute parallelized is given a user option to do so or not.

[ascl:2207.020] vKompth: Time-dependent Comptonization model for black-hole X-ray binaries

vKompth fits the energy-dependent rms-amplitude and phase-lag spectra of low-frequency quasi-periodic oscillations in low mass black-hole X-ray binaries using a variable Comptonization model. The accretion disc is modeled as a multi-temperature blackbody source emitting soft photons which are then Compton up-scattered in a spherical corona, including feedback of Comptonized photons that return to the disc.

[ascl:2308.012] KeplerFit: Keplerian velocity distribution model fitter

KeplerFit fits a Keplerian velocity distribution model to position-velocity (PV) data to obtain an estimate of the enclosed mass. The code extracts the scales of the pixels in both directions, spatial and spectral, then extracts the most extreme velocity at each position; this returns two arrays of positions and velocities. KeplerFit then models the extracted PV data and returns a set of the best-fit parameters, the standard deviations in each of the parameters, and the total residual of the fit.

[ascl:2207.026] pdspy: MCMC tool for continuum and spectral line radiative transfer modeling

pdspy fits Monte Carlo radiative transfer models for protostellar/protoplanetary disks to ALMA continuum and spectral line datasets using Markov Chain Monte Carlo fitting. It contains two tools, one to fit ALMA continuum visibilities and broadband spectral energy distributions (SEDs) with full radiative transfer models, and another to fit ALMA spectral line visibilities with protoplanetary disk models that include a vertically isothermal, power law temperature distribution. No radiative equilibrium calculation is done.

[ascl:2207.028] disksurf: Measure the molecular emission surface of protoplanetary disks

disksurf measures the height of optically thick emission or photosphere in moderately inclined protoplanetary disks. The package is dependent on AstroPy (ascl:1304.002) and uses GoFish (ascl:2011.016) to retrieve data from FITS data cubes and user-specified parameters to return a surface object containing the disk-centric coordinates of the surface and the gas temperature and rotation velocity at those locations. disksurf provides clipping, smoothing, and diagnostic functions as well.

[ascl:2308.005] FastSpecFit: Fast spectral synthesis and emission-line fitting of DESI spectra

FastSpecFit models the observed-frame optical spectroscopy and broadband photometry of extragalactic targets using physically grounded stellar continuum and emission-line templates. The code handles data from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) Survey, which is amassing spectrophotometry for an unprecedented 40 million extragalactic targets, although the algorithms are general enough to accommodate other upcoming, massively multiplexed spectroscopic surveys. FastSpecFit extracts nearly 800 observed- and rest-frame quantities from each target, including light-weighted ages and stellar velocity dispersions based on the underlying stellar continuum; line-widths, velocity shifts, integrated fluxes, and equivalent widths for nearly 40 rest-frame ultraviolet, optical, and near-infrared emission lines arising from both star formation and active galactic nuclear activity; and K-corrections and rest-frame absolute magnitudes and colors. Moreover, FastSpecFit is designed with speed and parallelism in mind, enabling it to deliver robust model fits to tens of millions of targets.

[ascl:2208.003] Scatfit: Scattering fits of time domain radio signals (Fast Radio Bursts or pulsars)

Scatfit models observed burst signals of impulsive time domain radio signals ( e.g., Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) or pulsars pulses), which usually are convolution products of various effects, and fits them to the experimental data. It includes several models for scattering and instrumental effects. The code loads the experimental time domain radio data, cleans them, fits an aggregate scattering model to the data, and robustly estimates the model parameters and their uncertainties. Additionally, scatfit determines the scaling of the scattering time with frequency, i.e. the scattering index, and the scattering-corrected dispersion measure of the burst or pulse.

[ascl:2208.015] J-comb: Combine high-resolution and low-resolution data

J-comb combines high-resolution data with large-scale missing information with low-resolution data containing the short spacing. Based on uvcombine (ascl:2208.014), it takes as input FITS files of low- and high-resolution images, the angular resolution of the input images, and the pixel size of the input images, and outputs a FITS file of the combined image.

[ascl:2208.020] GStokes: Magnetic field structure and line profiles calculator

GStokes performs simple multipolar fits to circular polarization data to provide information about the field strength and geometry. It provides forward calculation of the disc-integrated Stokes parameter profiles as well as magnetic inversions under several widely used simplifying approximations of the polarized line formation. GStokes implements the Unno–Rachkovsky analytical solution of the polarized radiative transfer equation and the weak-field approximation with the Gaussian local profiles. The magnetic field geometry is described with one of the common low-order multipolar field parametrizations. Written in IDL, GStokes provides a user-friendly graphical front-end.

[ascl:2212.010] sf_deconvolve: PSF deconvolution and analysis

sf_deconvolve performs PSF deconvolution using a low-rank approximation and sparsity. It can handle a fixed PSF for the entire field or a stack of PSFs for each galaxy position. The code accepts Numpy binary files or FITS as input, takes the observed (i.e. with PSF effects and noise) stack of galaxy images and a known PSF, and attempts to reconstruct the original images. sf_deconvolve can be run in a terminal or in an active Python session, and includes options for initialization, optimization, low-Rank approximation, sparsity, PSF estimation, and other attributes.

[submitted] EleFits

EleFits is a modern C++ package to read and write FITS files which focuses on safety, user-friendliness, and performance.

[ascl:2210.011] gbdes: DECam instrumental signature fitting and processing programs

gbdes derives photometric and astrometric calibration solutions for complex multi-detector astronomical imagers. The package includes routines to filter catalogs down to useful stellar objects, collect metadata from the catalogs and create a config file holding FITS binary tables describing exposures, instruments, fields, and other available information in the data, and uses a friends-of-friends matching algorithm to link together all detections of common objects found in distinct exposures. gbdes also calculates airmasses and parallactic angles for each exposure, calculates and saves the expected differential chromatic refraction (DCR) needed for precision astrometry, optimizes the parameters of a photometric model to maximize agreement between magnitudes measured in different exposures of the same source, and optimizing the parameters of an astrometric model to maximize agreement among the exposures and any reference catalogs, and performs other tasks. The solutions derived and used by gbdes are stored in YAML format; gbdes uses the Python code pixmappy (ascl:2210.012) to read the astrometric solution files and execute specified transformations.

[ascl:2210.017] PySME: Spectroscopy Made Easy reimplemented with Python

PySME is a partial reimplementation of Spectroscopy Made Easy (SME, ascl:1202.013), which fits an observed spectrum of a star with a model spectrum. The IDL routines of SME used to call a dynamically linked library of compiled C++ and Fortran programs have been rewritten in Python. In addition, an object oriented paradigm and continuous integration practices, including build automation, self-testing, and frequent builds, have been added.

[ascl:2210.020] ixpeobssim: Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer simulator and analyzer

The simulation and analysis framework ixpeobssim was specifically developed for the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE). It produces realistic simulated observations, in the form of event lists in FITS format, that also contain a strict superset of the information included in the publicly released IXPE data products. The framework's core simulation capabilities are complemented by post-processing applications that support the spatial, spectral, and temporal models needed for analysis of typical polarized X-ray sources, allowing implementation of complex, polarization-aware analysis pipelines. Where applicable, the data formats are consistent with the common display and analysis tools used by the community, e.g., the binned count spectra can be fed into XSPEC (ascl:9910.005), along with the corresponding response functions, for doing standard spectral analysis. All ixpeobssim simulation and analysis tools are fully configurable via the command line.

[ascl:2210.026] PGOPHER: Rotational, vibrational, and electronic spectra simulator

PGOPHER simulates and fits rotational, vibrational, and electronic spectra. It handles linear molecules and symmetric and asymmetric tops, including effects due to unpaired electrons and nuclear spin, with a separate mode for vibrational structure. The code performs many sorts of transitions, including Raman, multiphoton, and forbidden transitions. It can simulate multiple species and states simultaneously, including special effects such as perturbations and state dependent predissociation. Fitting can be to line positions, intensities, or band contours. PGOPHER uses a standard graphical user interface and makes comparison with, and fitting to, spectra from various sources easy. In addition to overlaying numerical spectra, it is also possible to overlay pictures from pdf files and even plate spectra to assist in checking that published constants are being used correctly.

[ascl:2211.012] gsf: Grism SED Fitting package

gsf fits photometric data points, simultaneously with grism spectra if provided, to get posterior probability of galaxy physical properties, such as stellar mass, dust attenuation, metallicity, as well as star formation and metallicity enrichment histories. Designed for extra-galactic science, this flexible, python-based SED fitting code involves a Markov-Chain Monte-Carlo (MCMC) process, and may take more time (depending on the number of parameters and length of MCMC chains) than other SED fitting codes based on chi-square minimization.

[ascl:2211.015] H-FISTA: Phase retrieval for pulsar spectroscopy

H-FISTA (Hierarchical Fast Iterative Shrinkage Thresholding Algorithm) retrieves the phases of the wavefield from intensity measurements for pulsar spectroscopy. The code accepts input data in ASCII format as produced by PSRchive's (ascl:1105.014) psrflux function, a FITS file, or a pickle. If using a notebook, any custom reader can be used as long as the data ends up in a NumPy array. H-FISTA obtains sparse models of the wavefield in a hierarchical approach with progressively increasing depth. Once the tail of the noise distribution is reached, the hierarchy terminates with a final unregularized optimization, resulting in a fully dense model of the complex wavefield that permits the discovery of faint signals by appropriate averaging.

[ascl:2212.014] pyTANSPEC: Python tool for extracting 1D TANSPEC spectra from 2D images

pyTANSPEC extracts XD-mode spectra automatically from data collected by the TIFR-ARIES Near Infrared Spectrometer (TANSPEC) on India's ground-based 3.6-m Devasthal Optical Telescope at Nainital, India. The TANSPEC offers three modes of observations, imaging with various filters, spectroscopy in the low-resolution prism mode with derived R~ 100-400 and the high-resolution cross-dispersed mode (XD-mode) with derived median R~ 2750 for a slit of width 0.5 arcsec. In the XD-mode, ten cross-dispersed orders are packed in the 2048 x 2048 pixels detector to cover the full wavelength regime. The XD-mode is most utilized; pyTANSPEC provides a dedicated pipeline for consistent data reduction for all orders and to reduces data reduction time. The code requires nominal human intervention only for the quality assurance of the reduced data. Two customized configuration files are used to guide the data reduction. The pipeline creates a log file for all the fits files in a given data directory from its header, identifies correct frames (science, continuum and calibration lamps) based on the user input, and offers an option to the user for eyeballing and accepting/removing of the frames, does the cleaning of raw science frames and yields final wavelength calibrated spectra of all orders simultaneously.

[ascl:2301.005] fitOmatic: Interferometric data modeling

The fitOmatic model-fitting prototyping tool tests multi-wavelength model-fitting and exploits VLTI data. It provides tools to define simple geometrical models and conveniently adjust the model's parameters. Written in Yorick, it takes optical interferometry FITS (oifits) files as input and allows the user to define a model of the source from a set of pre-defined models, which can be combined to make more complicated models. fitOmatic then computes the Fourier Transform of the modeled brightness distribution and synthetic observables are computed at the wavelengths and projected baselines of the observations. fitomatic's strength is its ability to define vector-parameters, i.e., parameters that may depend on wavelength and/or time. The self-cal (ascl:2301.006) component of fitOmatic is also available as a separate code.

[ascl:2301.006] Self-cal: Optical/IR long-baseline interferometry

Self-cal produces radio-interferometric images of an astrophysical object. The code is an adaptation of the self-calibration algorithm to optical/infrared long-baseline interferometry, especially to make use of differential phases and differential visibilities. It works together with the Mira image reconstruction software and has been used mainly on VLTI data. Self-cal, written in Yorick, is also available as part of fitsOmatic (ascl:2301.005).

[submitted] nFITSview: A simple and user-friendly FITS image viewer

nFITSview is a simple, user-friendly and open-source FITS image viewer available for Linux and Windows. One of the main concepts of nFITSview is to provide an intuitive user interface which may be helpful both for scientists and for amateur astronomers. nFITSview has different color mapping and manipulation schemes, supports different formats of FITS data files as well as exporting them to different popular image formats. It also supports command-line exporting (with some restrictions) of FITS files to other image formats.
The application is written in C++/Qt for achieving better performance, and with every next version the performance aspect is taken into account.
nFITSview uses its own libnfits library (can be used separately as well) for parsing the FITS files.

[ascl:2301.028] special: SPEctral Characterization of directly ImAged Low-mass companions

special (SPEctral Characterization of directly ImAged Low-mass companions) characterizes low-mass (M, L, T) dwarfs down to giant planets at optical/IR wavelengths. It can also be used more generally to characterize any type of object with a measured spectrum, provided a relevant input model grid, regardless of the observational method used to obtain the spectrum (direct imaging or not) and regardless of the format of the spectra (multi-band photometry, low-resolution or medium-resolution spectrum, or a combination thereof). It analyzes measured spectra, calculating the spectral correlation between channels of an IFS datacube and empirical spectral indices for MLT-dwarfs. It fits input spectra to either photo-/atmospheric model grids or a blackbody model, including additional parameters such as (extra) black body component(s), extinction and total-to-selective extinction ratio, and can use emcee (ascl:1303.002), nestle (ascl:2103.022), or UltraNest (ascl:1611.001) samplers infer posterior distributions on spectral model parameters in a Bayesian framework, among other tasks.

[ascl:2302.012] Diffstar: Differentiable star formation histories

Diffstar fits the star formation history (SFH) of galaxies to a smooth parametric model. Diffstar differs from existing SFH models because the parameterization of the model is directly based on basic features of galaxy formation physics, including halo mass assembly history, accretion of gas into the dark matter halo, the fraction of gas that is converted into stars, the time scale over which star formation occurs, and the possibility of rejuvenated star formation. The SFHs of a large number of simulated galaxies can be fit in parallel using mpi4py.

[ascl:2302.002] deconfuser: Fast orbit fitting to directly imaged multi-planetary systems

Deconfuser performs fast orbit fitting to directly imaged multi-planetary systems. It quickly fits orbits to planet detections in 2D images and ensures that all orbits within a certain tolerance are found. The code also tests all groupings of detections by planets (which detection belongs to which planet), and ranks partitions of detections by planets by deciding which assignment of detection-to-planet best fits the data.

[ascl:2302.007] AnalyticLC: Dynamical modeling of planetary systems

AnalyticLC generates an analytic light-curve, and optionally RV and astrometry data, from a set of initial (free) orbital elements and simultaneously fits these data. Written in MATLAB, the code is fast and efficient, and provides insight into the motion of the orbital elements, which is difficult to obtain from numerical integration. A Python wrapper for AnalyticLC is available separately.

[ascl:2302.009] EXOTIC: EXOplanet Transit Interpretation Code

EXOTIC (EXOplanet Transit Interpretation Code) analyzes photometric data of transiting exoplanets into lightcurves and retrieves transit epochs and planetary radii. The software reduces images of a transiting exoplanet into a lightcurve, and fits a model to the data to extract planetary information crucial to increasing the efficiency of larger observational platforms. EXOTIC is written in Python and supports the citizen science project Exoplanet Watch. The software runs on Windows, Macintosh, and Linux/Unix computer, and can also be used via Google Colab.

[ascl:2302.014] kima: Exoplanet detection in RVs with DNest4 and GPs

kima fits Keplerian curves to a set of RV measurements, using the Diffusive Nested Sampling (ascl:1010.029) algorithm to sample the posterior distribution for the model parameters. Additionally, the code can calculate the fully marginalized likelihood of a model with a given number of Keplerians and also infer the number of Keplerian signals detected in a given dataset. kima implements dedicated models for different analyses of a given dataset. The models share a common organization, but each has its own parameters (and thus priors) and settings.

[ascl:2306.031] ECLIPSE: Efficient Cmb poLarization and Intensity Power Spectra Estimator

ECLIPSE (Efficient Cmb poLarization and Intensity Power Spectra Estimator) implements an optimized version of the Quadratic Maximum Likelihood (QML) method for the estimation of the power spectra of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) from masked skies. Written in Fortran, ECLIPSE can be used in a personal computer but also benefits from the capabilities of a supercomputer to tackle large scale problems; it is designed to run parallel on many MPI tasks. ECLIPSE analyzes masked CMB maps in which the signal can be affected by the beam and pixel window functions. The masks of intensity and polarization can be different and the noise can be isotropic or anisotropic. The program can estimate auto and cross-correlation power spectrum, that can be binned or unbinned.

[ascl:2305.009] breizorro: Image masking tool

Given a FITS image, breizorro creates a binary mask. The software allows the user control various parameters and functions, such as setting a sigma threshold for masking, merging in or subtracting one or more masks or region files, filling holes, applying dilation within a defined radius of pixels, and inverting the mask.

[ascl:2306.001] HAFFET: Supernovae photometric and spectroscopic data analyzer

HAFFET (Hybrid Analytic Flux FittEr for Transients) analyzes supernovae photometric and spectroscopic data. It handles observational data for a set of targets, estimates their physical parameters, and visualizes the population of inferred parameters. HAFFET defines two classes, snobject for data and fittings for one specific object, and snelist to organize the overall running for a list of objects. The HAFFET package includes utilities for downloading SN data from online sources, intepolating multi band lightcurves, characterizing the first light and rising of SNe with power law fits, and matching epochs of different bands. It can also calculate colors, and/or construct the spectral energy distribution (SED), estimate bolometric LCs and host galaxy extinction, fit the constructed bolometric lightcurves to different models, and identify and fit the absorption minima of spectral lines, in addition to performing other tasks. In addition to utilizing the built-in models, users can add their own models or import models from other python packages.

[ascl:2308.011] glmnet: Lasso and elastic-net regularized generalized linear models

glmnet efficiently fits the entire lasso or elastic-net regularization path for linear regression (gaussian), multi-task gaussian, logistic and multinomial regression models (grouped or not), Poisson regression and the Cox model. The algorithm uses cyclical coordinate descent in a path-wise fashion.

[ascl:2306.033] lasso_spectra: Predict properties from galaxy spectra using Lasso regression

lasso_spectra fits Lasso regression models to data, specifically galaxy spectra. It contains two classes for performing the actual model fitting. GeneralizedLasso is a tensorflow implementation of Lasso regression, which includes the ability to use link functions. SKLasso is a wrapper around the scikit-learn Lasso implementation intended to give the same syntax as GeneralizedLasso. It is much faster and more reliable, but does not support generalized linear models.

[ascl:2306.037] CADET: X-ray cavity detection tool

The machine learning pipeline CADET (CAvity DEtection Tool) finds and size-estimates arbitrary surface brightness depressions (X-ray cavities) on noisy Chandra images of galaxies. The pipeline is a self-standing Python script and inputs either raw Chandra images in units of counts (numbers of captured photons) or normalized background-subtracted and/or exposure-corrected images. CADET saves corresponding pixel-wise as well as decomposed cavity predictions in FITS format and also preserves the WCS coordinates; it also outputs a PNG file showing decomposed predictions for individual scales.

[ascl:2306.059] BOXFIT: Gamma-ray burst afterglow light curve generator

BOXFIT calculates light curves and spectra for arbitrary observer times and frequencies and of performing (broadband) data fits using the downhill simplex method combined with simulated annealing. The flux value for a given observer time and frequency is a function of various variables that set the explosion physics (energy of the explosion, circumburst number density and jet collimation angle), the radiative process (magnetic field generation efficiency, electron shock-acceleration efficiency and synchrotron power slope for the electron energy distribution) and observer position (distance, redshift and angle). The code can be run both in parallel and on a single core. Because a data fit takes many iterations, this is best done in parallel. Single light curves and spectra can readily be done on a single core.

[ascl:2307.004] ALF: Absorption line fitter

alf fits the absorption line optical—NIR spectrum. Initially written to constrain the stellar IMF in old massive galaxies, the code now also offers theoretical age and metallicity-dependent response functions covering 19 elements, nuisance parameters to capture uncertainties in stellar evolution, and parameters to capture uncertainties in the data, including modeling telluric absorption and sky line residuals. alf can fit stellar populations with metallicities from approximately -2.0 to +0.3 and performs well when fitting stellar populations ranging from metal-poor globular clusters to brightest cluster galaxies. The software works in continuum-normalized space and so does not make any use of the shape of the continuum (nor of corresponding photometry). Fitting is handled with emcee (ascl:1303.002); the code is MPI parallelized and runs efficiently on many processors, though fitting data with alf is time intensive.

[ascl:2307.017] Veusz: Scientific plotting package

Veusz produces a wide variety of publication-ready 2D and 3D plots. Plots are created by building up plotting widgets with a consistent object-based interface, and the package provides many options for customizing plots. Veusz can import data from text, CSV, HDF5 and FITS files; datasets can also be entered within the program and new datasets created via the manipulation of existing datasets using mathematical expressions and more. The program can also be extended, by adding plugins supporting importing new data formats, different types of data manipulation or for automating tasks, and it supports vector and bitmap output, including PDF, Postscript, SVG and EMF.

[ascl:2307.045] NAVanalysis: Normalized Additional Velocity analysis

NAVanalysis studies the non-baryonic, or non-Newtonian, contribution to galaxy rotation curves straight from a given data sample. Conclusions on the radial profile of a given model can be drawn without individual galaxy fits to provide an efficient sample comparison. The method can be used to eliminate model parameter regions, find the most probable parameter regions, and uncover trends not easy to find from standard fits. Further, NAVanalysis can compare different approaches and models.

[ascl:2308.004] AstroPhot: Fitting everything everywhere all at once in astronomical images

AstroPhot quickly extracts detailed information from complex astronomical data for individual images or large survey programs. It fits models for sky, stars, galaxies, PSFs, and more in a principled chi^2 forward optimization, recovering Bayesian posterior information and covariance of all parameters. The code optimizes forward models on CPU or GPU, across images that are large, multi-band, multi-epoch, rotated, dithered, and more. Models are optimized together, thus handling overlapping objects and including the covariance between parameters (including PSF and galaxy parameters). AstroPhot includes several optimization algorithms, including Levenberg-Marquardt, Gradient descent, and No-U-Turn MCMC sampling.

[ascl:2309.014] fitScalingRelation: Fit galaxy cluster scaling relations using MCMC

fitScalingRelation fits galaxy cluster scaling relations using orthogonal or bisector regression and MCMC. It takes into account errors on both variables and intrinsic scatter. Although it geared for fitting galaxy cluster scaling relations of all kinds, it can be used for any kind of regression problem with errors on both variables and intrinsic scatter.

[ascl:2309.020] PlanetSlicer: Orange-slice algorithm for fitting brightness maps to phase curves

PlanetSlicer fits brightness maps to phase curves using the "orange-slice" method and works both for self-luminous objects and those that diffuse reflected light assuming Lambertian reflectance. In both cases, the model supposes that a spherical object can be divided into slices of constant brightness (or albedo) which may be integrated to yield the total flux observed, given the angles of observation. The package contains two key functions: toPhaseCurve and fromPhaseCurve; the former integrates the brightness for each slice to calculate the observed total flux from the object, given the longitude of observation. The latter does the opposite, estimating the brightness of the slices from a set of observed total flux (the phase curve).

[ascl:2310.011] AI-Feynman: Symbolic regression algorithm

AI-Feynman fits analytical expressions to data sets via symbolic regression, mapping the target variable to different features supplied in the data array. Using a neural network with constraints in the number of parameters utilized, the code provides the ability to obtain analytical expressions for normalized features that are used to predict a Pareto-optimal target. AI-Feynman is robust in handling noisy data, recursively generating multidimensional symbolic expressions that match data from an unknown functions.

[ascl:2312.001] smops: A sub-band model FITS image interpolator

smops interpolates input sub-band model FITS images, such as those produced by WSClean (ascl:1408.023), into more finely channelized sub-band model FITS images, thus generating model images at a higher frequency resolution. It is a Python-based command line tool. For example, given input model FITS images initially created from sub-dividing a given bandwidth into four, smops can subdivide that bandwidth further, resulting in more finely channelized model images, to a specified frequency resolution. This smooths out the stepwise behavior of models across frequency, which can improve the results of self-calibration with such models.

[ascl:2312.012] PulsarX: Pulsar searching

The folding pipeline PulsarX searches for pulsars. The code includes radio frequency interference mitigation, de-dispersion, folding, and parameter optimization, and supports both psrfits and filterbank data formats. The toolset has two implementations of the folding pipelines; one uses a brute-force de-dispersion algorithm, and the other an algorithm that becomes more efficient than the brute-force de-dispersion algorithm as the number of candidates increases. PulsarX is appropriate for large-scale pulsar surveys.

[ascl:2312.016] The Farmer: Photometry routines for deep multi-wavelength galaxy surveys

The Farmer contains photometry routines geared towards deep, multi-wavelength galaxy surveys. It fits simple parametric surface brightness profiles provided by The Tractor (ascl:1604.008) to measure precision photometry even in deeply crowded fields when provided with a suitable high resolution detection image. The Farmer has been used to build a number of galaxy survey catalogs including COSMOS202, SHELA, and H20.

[ascl:2403.010] FitCov: Fitted Covariance generation

FitCov estimates the covariance of two-point correlation functions in a way that requires fewer mocks than the standard mock-based covariance. Rather than using an analytically fixed correction to some terms that enter the jackknife covariance matrix, the code fits the correction to a mock-based covariance obtained from a small number of mocks. The fitted jackknife covariance remains unbiased, an improvement over other methods, performs well both in terms of precision (unbiased constraints) and accuracy (similar uncertainties), and requires significant less computational power. In addition, FitCov can be easily implemented on top of the standard jackknife covariance computation.

[ascl:2402.002] Rfits: FITS file manipulation in R

Rfits reads and writes FITS images, tables, and headers. Written in R, Rfits works with all types of compressed images, and both ASCII and binary tables. It uses CFITSIO (ascl:1010.001) for all low level FITS IO, so in general should be as fast as other CFITSIO-based software. For images, Rfits offers fully featured memory mapping and on-the-fly subsetting (by pixel and coordinate) and sparse pixel sampling, allowing for efficient inspection of very large (larger than memory) images.