Category Archives: news

March 2018 additions to the ASCL

Fifteen codes were added in March 2018:

3D-PDR: Three-dimensional photodissociation region code
CIFOG: Cosmological Ionization Fields frOm Galaxies
DaMaSCUS-CRUST: Dark Matter Simulation Code for Underground Scatterings – Crust Edition
ExoCross: Spectra from molecular line lists
ExtLaw_H18: Extinction law code

FAST: Fitting and Assessment of Synthetic Templates
IMAGINE: Interstellar MAGnetic field INference Engine
Kadenza: Kepler/K2 Raw Cadence Data Reader
LWPC: Long Wavelength Propagation Capability
MulensModel: Microlensing light curves modeling

nanopipe: Calibration and data reduction pipeline for pulsar timing
optBINS: Optimal Binning for histograms
RAPTOR: Imaging code for relativistic plasmas in strong gravity
scarlet: Source separation in multi-band images by Constrained Matrix Factorization
SETI-EC: SETI Encryption Code

Citations over time

How much have things changed? The previous “big 4” journals that had citations to ASCL entries have been joined by AJ and the percentage of citations from MNRAS has dropped a bit, but overall, the wedges of these two piecharts, one from October, 2015 and the second from today, look remarkably similar.

At the time the 2015 piechart was created, ASCL entries had been cited 465 times; today, ADS shows 2093 citations to ASCL entries. Seventeen percent of ASCL entries had been cited in October 2015, and as of today, over 29% of ASCL entries have citations.

Of course there are other ways to cite software, and the ASCL supports all citable methods and ASCL entries include preferred citation information where possible.

Do we list how your software should be cited? If not, please let us know your preferred method and we will add it to the entry!

February 2018 additions to the ASCL

Sixteen codes were added in February 2018:

AntiparticleDM: Discriminating between Majorana and Dirac Dark Matter
ARTIP: Automated Radio Telescope Image Processing Pipeline
astroplan: Observation planning package for astronomers
BHMcalc: Binary Habitability Mechanism Calculator

CMacIonize: Monte Carlo photoionisation and moving-mesh radiation hydrodynamics
collapse: Spherical-collapse model code
eqpair: Electron energy distribution calculator
FAC: Flexible Atomic Code

Glimpse: Sparsity based weak lensing mass-mapping tool
HiGal_SED_Fitter: SED fitting tools for Herschel Hi-Gal data
mrpy: Renormalized generalized gamma distribution for HMF and galaxy ensemble properties comparisons
PyOSE: Orbital sampling effect (OSE) simulator

runDM: Running couplings of Dark Matter to the Standard Model
venice: Mask utility
Verne: Earth-stopping effect for heavy dark matter
VISIBLE: VISIbility Based Line Extraction

December 2017 and January 2018 additions to the ASCL

Sixteen codes were added in December 2017:

Bitshuffle: Filter for improving compression of typed binary data
CosApps: Simulate gravitational lensing through ray tracing and shear calculation
draco: Analysis and simulation of drift scan radio data
FBEye: Analyzing Kepler light curves and validating flares

Flux Tube: Solar model
KDUtils: Kinematic Distance Utilities
LgrbWorldModel: Long-duration Gamma-Ray Burst World Model
MadDM: Computation of dark matter relic abundance

MPI_XSTAR: MPI-based parallelization of XSTAR program
Nyx: Adaptive mesh, massively-parallel, cosmological simulation code
photodynam: Photodynamical code for fitting the light curves of multiple body systems
Py-SPHViewer: Cosmological simulations using Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics

QATS: Quasiperiodic Automated Transit Search
RODRIGUES: RATT Online Deconvolved Radio Image Generation Using Esoteric Software
SFoF: Friends-of-friends galaxy cluster detection algorithm
SgrbWorldModel: Short-duration Gamma-Ray Burst World Model

And twelve codes were added in January 2018:

BANYAN_Sigma: Bayesian classifier for members of young stellar associations
BOND: Bayesian Oxygen and Nitrogen abundance Determinations
cambmag: Magnetic Fields in CAMB
DecouplingModes: Passive modes amplitudes

DICE/ColDICE: 6D collisionless phase space hydrodynamics using a lagrangian tesselation
GABE: Grid And Bubble Evolver
Gnuastro: GNU Astronomy Utilities
hh0: Hierarchical Hubble Constant Inference

InitialConditions: Initial series solutions for perturbations in our Universe
iWander: Dynamics of interstellar wanderers
RadVel: General toolkit for modeling Radial Velocities
Stan: Statistical inference

Funding for the ASCL

The ASCL will receive funding for two years from NASA’s Astrophysics Data Analysis Program (ADAP) to improve the discoverability of NASA-funded astrophysics research software through the ASCL. The project will run under the direction of Dr. Peter Teuben, PI, and Alice Allen, Co-I, through the University of Maryland, College Park.

Vermeer in DC, just in time for the AAS 231st meeting!

If you are going to the AAS meeting in National Harbor next month, you might consider taking some time to visit the National Gallery of Art for a rare opportunity to view two paintings well-known to Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) fans: Vermeer’s luminous The Astronomer and The Geographer. These paintings, owned by the Louvre and the Städelsches Kunstinstitut respectively, are part of the wonderful Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting: Inspiration and Rivalry exhibit which runs through January 21, 2018 in the West building of the Gallery.

Why are these two paintings well-known to APOD fans? A mashup of these two paintings appeared on APOD’s first birthday on June 16, 1996; note the introduction of a Hubble image for the painting on the wall:

picture combining Vermeer's The Geographer and The Astronomer paintings into one image, with Hubble's Pillars of Creation appearing on the back wall

APOD for June 16, 1996 (with apologies to Vermeer)

On APOD’s 5th birthday, a new composite of these paintings appeared:

picture combining Vermeer's The Geographer and The Astronomer paintings into one image

APOD for June 16, 2000 (with apologies to Vermeer)

Apparently, a tradition was born, and APOD fans started contributing their own takes on these famous images, as seen below in the 10th birthday image, created by Richard Taillet (Univ. de Savoie, LAPTH, LPNHE) and including a few objects that Vermeer’s astronomer never had the opportunity to view.

APOD for June 16, 2006 (with apologies to Vermeer; composite by Richard Taillet)

The next landmark APOD birthdays featured the image that appeared for the 10th birthday, but with a twist: it was pixelated by APOD fan Rob Stevenson using APOD thumbnail images. The image below does not do this justice, so please click through to the larger image housed on the APOD site to see whether you can find your favorite APOD amongst the ones making up this image.

APOD for June 16, 2016 (with apologies to Vermeer; pixelation by Rob Peterson)

To get back to the art exhibit, Vermeer is not the only painter featured in Genre Painting show, nor is his the only astronomer there. The Geographer and The Astronomer appear on one wall with Gerrit Dou’s Astronomer by Candlelight, owned by the Getty Museum, between them. Paintings by other Dutch artists, including Gerard ter Borch, Caspar Netscher, Pieter de Hooch, and Jan Steen, are also on display. So many Dutch treats! It’s a lovely exhibit and well worth finding your way to the National Gallery.

You will not have to go to the National Gallery of Art to see the APOD editors, however! Jerry Bonnell and Robert Nemiroff are giving a public talk at the AAS meeting at National Harbor; The Year’s Best Astronomy Images will be held on Tuesday, January 9 starting at 7:00 pm in the Gaylord’s Maryland Ballroom D.

Software events at AAS 231, National Harbor

The Big List o’ Software Stuff for the January AAS meeting is here; it appears software is taking over the world! if I missed anything, please let me know in the comments below. Thank you!

SUNDAY, 7 JANUARY 2018
Workshops
Introduction to Software Carpentry (Day 1), 8:00 AM – 5:30 PM; RiverView Ballroom 2
Hands-on Hierarchical Bayesian Modeling of Cosmic Populations, 9:30 AM – 4:30 PM; Potomac Ballroom 1
Using Python to Search NASA’s Astrophysics Archives, 10:00 AM – 11:30 AM; Potomac Ballroom 2

MONDAY, 8 JANUARY 2018
Workshops
Introduction to Software Carpentry (Day 2), 8:00 AM – 5:30 PM; RiverView Ballroom 2
Using Python and Astropy for Astronomical Data Analysis, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM; RiverView Ballroom B
A Data Science Foundation & Roadmap for Astronomy Instructors, 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM; Potomac Ballroom 1

TUESDAY, 9 JANUARY 2018
Splinter meeting: Better Data Visualization and Exploration with GLUE, 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM; National Harbor 8 (Note corrected time!)

Poster presentations

Session 150. Computation, Data Handling, Image Analysis Poster Session (39 posters!)

Also:
157.02. Evolving R Coronae Borealis Stars with MESA
157.07. Modeling Protoplanetary Disks to Characterize the Evolution of their Structure
157.15. Case Study of Data Mining in Observational Astronomy: The Search for New OB Stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud
144.12. The evolution of a dead zone in a circumplanetary disk
144.17. Modeling a Large Heterogeneous Set of CIRS Spectra of Titan: The ν4 band of 12C2HD
111.02. Dynamical Studies of N-Body Gravity and Tidal Dissipation in the TRAPPIST-1 Star System
111.03. Phase Curve Analysis of Super-Earth 55 Cancri e
111.04. Statistical Analysis of Hubble/WFC3 Transit Spectroscopy of Extrasolar Planets
111.08. Theory and Simulation of Exoplanetary Atmospheric Haze: Giant Spectral Line Broadening
102.02. The Pan-STARRS pipeline and data products
102.03. Precision Photometry and Astrometry from Pan-STARRS
110.01. Resolving the Circumgalactic Medium in the NEPHTHYS Simulations
115.09. Hydrodynamic Modeling of the Deep Impact Mission into Comet Tempel 1
151.04. A Transdimensional Approach to Modeling the Cosmic X-ray Background
151.05. The VLITE Post-Processing Pipeline
151.07. OSIRIS-REx Asteroid Sample Return Mission Image Analysis
147.03. Impact of Fragtal Grains on Protoplanetary Disk Evolution
147.05. Determining Disk Parameters for the Classical Be Star 59 Cyg
147.06. Modeling Protoplanetary Disks
147.09. Characterizing Protoplanetary Disks in a Young Binary in Orion
147.14. Hydrodynamic Simulations of Protoplanetary Disks with GIZMO
153.06. A Search for Cosmic String Loops Using GADGET-2 Cosmological N-Body Simulator
148.04. 3D hydrodynamic simulations of tidal disruption of terrestrial planets around white dwarfs
148.08. BARTTest: Community-Standard Atmospheric Radiative-Transfer and Retrieval Tests
148.13. Modeled 3-D Biosignatures from the Stratospheres of Proxima Centauri b and M-dwarf Planets
148.14. The Exoplanet Characterization ToolKit (ExoCTK)
148.29. Every Cloud has a Silver Lining: Synthesizing Spectra for Exoplanets with Inhomogeneous Aerosol Coverage
149.22. HERA, Methods of Computational Optimization in search for Epoch of Reionization
149.31. A Phenomenological Model of Star Formation Efficiency in Dark Matter Halos
136.02. Simulations of star-forming molecular clouds: observational predictions
158.10. Simulations of Tidally Driven Formation of Binary Planet Systems
158.11. Simulations of Magnetic Flux Emergence in Cool, Low-Mass Stars: Toward Linking Dynamo Action with Starspots
158.16. The Ultracool Typing Kit – An Open-Source, Qualitative Spectral Typing GUI for L Dwarfs
146.01. Binary Model for the Heartbeat Star System KIC 4142768
145.05. Modeling and Analysis of CTIO 1.5m White Dwarf Spectra

Oral presentations

111.02. Dynamical Studies of N-Body Gravity and Tidal Dissipation in the TRAPPIST-1 Star System, 10:10 AM – 10:20 AM, National Harbor 11
111.03. Phase Curve Analysis of Super-Earth 55 Cancri e, 10:20 AM – 10:30 AM, National Harbor 11
111.04. Statistical Analysis of Hubble/WFC3 Transit Spectroscopy of Extrasolar Planets, 10:30 AM – 10:40 AM, National Harbor 11
111.08. Theory and Simulation of Exoplanetary Atmospheric Haze: Giant Spectral Line Broadening, 11:20 AM – 11:30 AM, National Harbor 11
102.02. The Pan-STARRS pipeline and data products, 10:00 AM – 11:30 AM, Potomac C
102.03. Precision Photometry and Astrometry from Pan-STARRS, 10:00 AM – 11:30 AM, Potomac C
110.01. Resolving the Circumgalactic Medium in the NEPHTHYS Simulations, 10:00 AM – 10:10 AM, National Harbor 10
115.06. The Deflector Selector: A Machine Learning Framework for Prioritizing Hazardous Object Deflection Technology Development, 10:50 AM – 11:00 AM, Potomac 1-2
115.09. Hydrodynamic Modeling of the Deep Impact Mission into Comet Tempel 1, 1:20 AM – 11:30 AM, Potomac 1-2
116.01. SVD/MCMC Data Analysis Pipeline for Global Redshifted 21-cm Spectrum Observations of the Cosmic Dawn and Dark Ages, 12:00 PM – 3:30 PM; Woodrow Wilson BCD
128.04. Dynamics as a ‘Red Flag’ in Exoplanetary Science, 2:40 PM – 2:50 PM, National Harbor 11
132.07. Time-Dependent Electron Acceleration in Pulsar Wind Termination Shocks: Application the 2011 April Crab Nebula Gamma-ray Flare, 3:20 PM – 3:30 PM, Potomac 3-4

WEDNESDAY, 10 JANUARY 2018
Special Session: Applied Statistical Methods in Astronomy: Gaussian Processes and Machine Learning
2:00 PM – 3:30 PM; National Harbor 2

Poster presentations
Session 239: Applied Statistical Methods in Astronomy: Gaussian Processes and Machine Learning Poster Session

Also:
257.09. Exploring the Internal Dynamics of Globular Clusters
257.11. GalMod: the last frontier of Galaxy population synthesis models
257.22. TYCHO: Simulating Exoplanets Within Stellar Clusters
244.09. The COBAIN (COntact Binary Atmospheres with INterpolation) Code for Radiative Transfer
244.22. Modeling the binary circumstellar medium of Type IIb/L/n supernova progenitors
244.23. Photometric Analysis and Modeling of Five Mass-Transferring Binary Systems
244.26. A Global Three-Dimensional Radiation Hydrodynamic Simulation of a Self-Gravitating Accretion Disk
238.05. The Chandra Source Catalog 2.0: Data Processing Pipelines
246.03. An accessible echelle pipeline and its application to a binary star
246.04. Building Better Planet Populations for EXOSIMS
246.16. Improvements to the Root Finding Algorithm in VBBinaryLensing
258.16. Epoch of Reionization : An Investigation of the Semi-Analytic 21CMMC Code
252.12. Using numerical simulations to study the ICM metallicity fields in clusters and groups
255.01. SkyPlotter: Displaying Source Candidates Near High-Energy Neutrino Events
255.02. A new relativistic model for tidal stream evolution during tidal disruption events
255.05. Modeling Ponderomotive Squeezed Light in Gravitational-Wave Laser Interferometers
255.17. Data Analysis Techniques for LIGO Detector Characterization
243.11. Applying a physical continuum model to describe the broadband X-ray spectra of accreting pulsars at high luminosity
237.03. New Algorithm Identifies Tidal Streams Oriented Along our Line-of-Sight

Oral presentations
Session 213: Computation, Data Science, and Image Analysis 10:00 AM – 11:30 AM; National Harbor 4 (7 presentations)

Also:
211.07. Bayesian Analysis of Hot Jupiter Radius Anomalies Points to Ohmic Dissipation, 11:10 AM – 11:20 AM, National Harbor 11
210.06. Figuring Out Gas in Galaxies In Enzo (FOGGIE): Resolving the Inner Circumgalactic Medium, 11:10 AM – 11:20 AM, National Harbor 10
229.03. Forward modelling techniques for spectra retrieval of circumstellar debris disks, 2:30 PM – 2:40 PM, Potomac 5-6
226.03. Cosmological Simulations with Molecular Astrochemistry: Water in the Early Universe, 2:30 PM – 2:40 PM, National Harbor 3
228.05. pyLIMA : The first open source microlensing modeling software, 2:50 PM – 3:00 PM, National Harbor 11

THURSDAY, 11 JANUARY 2018
Special Session: Astronomy Software Publishing: Community Roles and Services, 10:00 am – 11:30 am, National Harbor 2
Plenary Talk: Astro Data Science: The Next Generation, 11:40 AM – 12:30 PM; Potomac Ballroom AB

Poster presentations
350.01. Looking for Dust-Scattering Light Echoes
350.03. Studying Dust Scattering Halos with Galactic X-ray Binaries
350.05. Markov Chain Models for Stochastic Behavior in Resonance Overlap Regions
340.13. Simulating Supernovae Driven Outflows in Dwarf Galaxies
355.27. Stellar Atmospheric Modelling for the ACCESS Program
351.02. Calculating the n-point correlation function with general and efficient python code
348.12. A Comparison of Mixing in Stellar Evolution Codes Tycho and Geneva
362.08. What Time is Your Sunset? Accounting for Refraction in Sunrise/set Prediction Models
362.09. SpecTracer: A Python-Based Interactive Solution for Echelle Spectra Reduction
362.11. Generative Models in Deep Learning: Constraints for Galaxy Evolution
362.16. Statistical tools for analysis and modeling of cosmic populations and astronomical time series: CUDAHM and TSE
338.04. Simulating nanostorm heating in coronal loops using hydrodynamics and non-thermal particle evolution
338.06. Modeling Solar Atmospheric Phenomena with AtomDB and PyAtomDB

Oral presentations
334.01. Modeling the photo-polarimetric characteristics of brown dwarfs, 2:00 PM – 2:10 PM, Maryland 1-2
334.04. 3D Realistic Radiative Hydrodynamic Modeling of a Moderate-Mass Star: Effects of Rotation, 2:40 PM – 2:50 PM, Maryland 1-2

FRIDAY, 12 JANUARY 2018
Workshop: Hack Together Day, 10:00 am ‐ 7:00 pm, National Harbor 13 (Info and registration)

Special Session: Statistical, Mathematical and Computational Methods for Astronomy (ASTRO): SAMSI 2016-17, 10:00 am – 11:30 am, Grapevine 2

Poster presentations
434.08. Modeling the Effects of Asynchronous Rotation on Secondary Eclipse Timings in HW VIr Binaries
436.05. Real-time Automatic Search for Multi-wavelength Counterparts of DWF Transient
436.16. CosmoQuest Transient Tracker: Opensource Photometry & Astrometry software
437.04. Impact of Ice on Evolution of Protoplanetary Disks and Formation of Planetary Systems
438.02. Tests of Catastrophic Outlier Prediction in Empirical Photometric Redshift Estimation with Redshift Probability Distributions
438.04. Confronting Alternative Cosmological Models with the Highest-Redshift Type Ia Supernovae
439.09. TESS Data Processing and Quick-look Pipeline
439.10. PyKE3: data analysis tools for NASA’s Kepler, K2, and TESS missions
439.18. Open-source Software for Exoplanet Atmospheric Modeling
439.22. Gaussian Process Noise Modeling with RadVel: a Case Study of HD 3167
439.23. Developing Tighter Constraints on Exoplanet Biosignatures by Modeling Atmospheric Haze
440.12. The Effects of Accretion Disk Thickness on the Black Hole Reflection Spectrum
441.03. Large Scale Structure in CHILES using DisPerSE
444.13. Teaching Astronomy and Computation with Gaia: A New Curriculum for an Extra-curricular High School Program
447.12. The Data Calibration Pipeline for JWST/NIRSpec
448.02. Kinematics of Globular Cluster: new Perspectives of Energy Equipartition from N-body Simulations
448.05. Improved Membership Probability for Moving Groups: Bayesian and Machine Learning Approaches
449.10. Employing Machine-Learning Methods to Study Young Stellar Objects
453.09. PINT, A Modern Software Package for Pulsar Timing
428.03. Identifying Likely Disk-hosting M dwarfs with Disk Detective
426.07. Observing Galaxy Mergers in Simulations
426.08. A new 3-D View of Ionized Gas Conditions in Galaxies
424.01. Constraining Population Synthesis Models of Compact Binary Mergers using Supernova Observations

Oral presentations
405.04. Radiation Transport in Dynamic Spacetimes, 10:40 AM – 10:50 AM, Maryland C
412.02.D Illuminating the star clusters and satellite galaxies with multi-scale baryonic simulations, 10:10 AM – 10:30 AM, National Harbor 4
406.01. Phase-space Analysis in the Group and Cluster Environment: Introduction and Application, 10:00 AM – 10:10 AM, Maryland D
406.05. Gas Dynamics in the Fornax Cluster: Viscosity, turbulence, and sloshing, 11:00 AM – 11:10 AM, Maryland D
409.04D. A Modern Picture of Barred Galaxy Dynamics, 10:40 AM – 11:00 AM, National Harbor 10
408.03D. Multidimensional pair-instability supernova simulations and their multi-messenger signals, 10:20 AM – 10:40 AM, National Harbor 3

Also of likely interest is the oral presentation on “Big Data” Teen Astronomy Cafes at NOAO that will take place on Wednesday, 10 January from 10:10 AM – 10:20 AM in Maryland 1-2.