astronomy time-and-the-sky software

[jrthorstensen]

Submitting Author: Name
jrthorstensen

Package Name:
thorsky
One-Line Description of Package:
astropy-based time-and-the-sky software for astronomical observations and reduction

Repository Link (if existing):
https://github.com/jrthorstensen/thorsky

EiC: @coatless

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• I have read and will commit to package maintenance after the review as per the pyOpenSci Policies Guidelines.

Description

The classes are time-and-the-sky functions for planning and carrying out ground-based astronomical observations, based on astropy.coordinates and astropy.time, with a few end-runs to speed things up. There is also a Tkl/TK program similar to JSkyCalc for interactive use. The functions are also useful for data processing for such tasks as, inferring barycentric corrections from image header data.

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• Astropy: My package adheres to Astropy community standards
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Scope

• Please indicate which category or categories this package falls under:

  • Data retrieval
  • Data extraction
  • Data processing/munging
  • Data deposition
  • Data validation and testing
  • Data visualization
  • Workflow automation
  • Citation management and bibliometrics
  • Scientific software wrappers
  • Database interoperability

Domain Specific

• Geospatial
• Education

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• Explain how and why the package falls under these categories (briefly, 1-2 sentences). For community partnerships, check also their specific guidelines as documented in the links above. Please note any areas you are unsure of:

This doesn't exactly fit any of the categories -- it's mostly useful to astronomers running telescopes to get data in the first place, and then useful later in filling in the time-and-the-sky context for observations.

• Who is the target audience and what are the scientific applications of this package?

• The target audience is observational astronomers who need to plan observations around the constraints imposed by their earthbound platform. It is also useful in processing and checking data from telescopes. It's also something of a primitive 'desktop planetarium', which is userful in many contexts.

• Are there other Python packages that accomplish similar things? If so, how does yours differ?

• astroplan seems to have some similar capabilities, but the present package has a more developed front-end and may have a more intuitive class structure.

• Any other questions or issues we should be aware of:

• I developed this for my own use based on something like 1000 nights of large-telescope operation, but I did not train as a programmer. I would need to write some tutorials, package it better, and so on -- if this is accepted, hopefully I can find others to offer guidance on that.

P.S. Have feedback/comments about our review process? Leave a comment here

[coatless]

Hello, and welcome to pyOpenSci! Thank you for this submission. Sorry for the delay in responding as the submission came in during our holiday break and EiC transition.

Regarding the submission, the software would be placed under two categories likely:

1. data processing/munging due to the timing processing step
2. data visualization for providing a sky display

With this being said, we do need a few features to be added to convert the scripts in the linked repository into a Python package that meets our criteria here:

https://www.pyopensci.org/software-peer-review/how-to/author-guide.html#does-your-package-meet-packaging-requirements

We provide several guides that will help with setting up the necessary Python package files here:

https://www.pyopensci.org/python-packaging-science.html#scientific-python-packaging-guidebook-sections

Glancing at the repository, there is already a PR against it that adds a few of the required package components:

jrthorstensen/thorsky#4

Thus, at the current time, we cannot accept the package for review as additional work is required by our guidelines. However, should that work be completed, we'd be more than happy to thoroughly review it.