[AstroPy] Representing astronomical (esp. IFU) datasets as Python objects

[Eric Emsellem]

Hi James,
well, any input is welcome here. And at the moment I am alone working on 
this although I have some colleagues here who are willing to maybe help 
me in the task. So there is hope....

cheers
Eric

James Turner wrote:
> Hi Eric,
> 
> OK - sorry - I wasn't sure that we were talking about exactly the same
> thing. It sounds like you're ahead of me on a very similar path. I'd be
> happy to send code if it is useful, although I haven't really done a lot
> yet, just the bits needed for the script I was writing (mainly simple
> WCS stuff). I still have to figure out how all the special methods etc.
> work. Anyway, with input from a few people I think a project like this
> could be very useful. Do you have other people involved at the moment?
> 
> I had avoided inheriting from HDUList, partly because it means having
> to understand all the PyFITS internals (which I wasn't really ready for),
> as well as keeping up with PyFITS maintenance - but it could make life
> easier in some ways. Several times I found myself contorting to avoid
> using the private attributes etc.
> 
> When I mentioned being 'tied to FITS', I wasn't suggesting using a
> different file format - just noting that the way data extensions are
> grouped in FITS files may not be exactly what the main program or user
> wants to deal with. For example, you might want to open the first SCI
> extension of several FITS files in a flat list, grouped with their VAR
> & DQ, rather than manipulating whole FITS files (nested lists), each of
> which corresponds to some subgroup of extensions. It seemed like the
> way to deal with this was to keep an arbitrary list of objects that
> each correspond to a SCI HDU, bundled together with its VAR, DQ, WCS
> & maybe all the other header info. Those could then be kept either in
> a normal list or a special kind of list that manages the mapping to
> FITS files (I was wavering back and forth on this, but never did it).
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> James.
> 

-- 
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Eric Emsellem                             emsellem at obs.univ-lyon1.fr
                            Centre de Recherche Astrophysique de Lyon
9 av. Charles-Andre                        tel: +33 (0)4 78 86 83 84
69561 Saint-Genis Laval Cedex              fax: +33 (0)4 78 86 83 86
France                    http://www-obs.univ-lyon1.fr/eric.emsellem
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