Astronomy

Classes and functions for astronomical calculations

Astronomy calculations, such as source positions in various coordinate systems, input and output of astronomical data in standard formats, and also source data lookup from the SIMBAD database, are generally handled by astropy.

The earliest version of this package was based on the FORTRAN program DOPSET by Manchester and Gordon [MG1970] for Doppler shift with respect to the LSR 1. For solar system bodies, PyEphem support was later added. For convenience, a module Astronomy.Ephem provides extensions to ephem, with subclass DSS of ephem.Observer for DSN and ESA stations, and subclasses Pulsar and Quasar of ephem.FixedBody.

The Astronomy.Ephem submodule also contains an extension to the PyEphem base data type that can be serialized, so as to be sent and received over network connections.

Astronomy also has modules for redshift calculations, solar coordinates, , and more.

Links

Project (repository).

Source code documentation (API).

Footnotes

1

For one-time Doppler calculation, the Online Dopset Tool.

Bibliography

MG1970

Manchester, R. N. & Gordon, M. DOPSET: A Computer Program to Calculate Doppler-Corrected Reference Frequencies for Spectral Line and Pulsar Observations, Technical Report, National Radio Astronomy Observatory, 1970.