[AstroPy] New version of telarchive + fetchsdss

[Peter Erwin]

Hi,

This is an announcement of an updated version (1.4) of my quick-and- 
dirty,
Python-based telescope archive search tool, available here:

   http://www.mpe.mpg.de/~erwin/code/

(A short summary of what it does is appended below.)

New features (and fixes):

- Searches of Gemini and CFHT archives now include a short summary of
instruments and # exposures.

- SDSS search now uses footprint server instead of main catalog; this  
ensure that
image fields which have no sources in the catalog (e.g., due to the  
presence of
very large galaxies) are still found.

- Restored access to SMOKA (Japanese telescope archive), which had  
been disabled
due to a change in the archive URL.


Note that the package includes a separate script called "fetchsdss",  
which allows
for command-line retrieval of FITS (or JPEG) images from the SDSS  
archive
via object name, coordinates, or SDSS field specification.


[previous summary, updated:]

"Telarchive" is a command-line program which simplifies searching  
various
public telescope archives to see if they might have data on a particular
astronomical object or part of the sky.  This includes the HST and  
general
MAST archive, as well as the ESO, Gemini, UKIRT, CFHT, SMOKA (includes
Subaru), and AAT ground-based archives, and imaging data from Data
Release 6 (DR6) of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.  The NOAO Science  
Archive
is also included, though it has very little publically available data  
at this
point. The Isaac Newton Group Archive is also searched, but only for  
data
from 2001 or earlier (newer data is handled by the new archive  
interface,
which doesn't use standard HTTP forms and so is not accessible by this
program).

The program won't *get* the data for you, of course (but see "fetchsdss"
for SDSS images), or even tell you very much about it -- for that, you
still need to visit the individual archive web pages.  But it will  
save you
lots of clicking and typing in web-page forms if you just want to find  
out
if there is *any* data available.

An example (searching within a 2-arcminute box centered on the planetary
nebula NGC 7027; searching on coordinates directly is also possible):

$ telarchive "ngc 7027" 2.0
        SIMBAD (Simbad 4, France):  Found object coordinates: RA = 21  
07 01.593, Dec = +42 14 10.18

Searching archives for ngc 7027 (RA = 21 07 01.593, dec = +42 14 10.18),
with search box =  2.0 arcmin...
	ESO Archive: No data found.
	AAT Archive: No data found.
	NOAO Science Archive: No data found.
	HST Archive (at ESO): Data exists! (84 observations found)
		-- 12 WFPC2, 24 WF, 1 PC, 13 NICMOS, 3 FOC, 24 STIS, 13 FOS
	UKIRT Archive: Data exists! (943 observations found)
	Multimission Archive at STScI (MAST): Data exists! (66 observations  
found)
		COPERNICUS (1); FUSE (2); GALEX (29); IUE (34)
	ING Archive (old interface): Data exists! (577 observations found)
		143 images, 391 spectra, 43 unclassified
		JKT -- RBS (1), FWHL (2), AGBX (102);  INT -- WFC (9), PFCU (30),  
IDS (66), MES (17), FOS_1 (10);  WHT -- TAURUS_2 (5), unknown (43),  
ISIS_BLUE_ARM (159), UES (58), ISIS_RED_ARM (75)
	Sloan Digital Sky Survey (DR6) Footprint Server: No data found.
	SMOKA (Subaru Mitaka Okayama Kiso Archive): Data exists! (921  
observations found)
		475 images and 446 spectra
		Subaru -- OHS/CISCO (9), Subaru -- IRCS (132), Subaru -- COMICS  
(331), Kiso -- 1k CCD (3), Subaru -- OHS/CISCO (29), Subaru -- IRCS  
(102), Subaru -- COMICS (281), Okayama -- SNG (3), Okayama -- HIDES (31)
	Gemini Science Archive: Data exists! (49 observations found)
		4 imaging, 45 IFU
		NIRI (4), GMOS-N (45)
	CFHT Archive: Data exists! (213 observations found)
		BEAR (200), AOBIR (6), AOBVIS (3), GECKO (4)


It's available as a gzipped tar file here:
   http://www.mpe.mpg.de/~erwin/code/

There are installation instructions/suggestions in the README file.
(And feel free to email with questions or suggestions about it!)

cheers,

Peter

=============================================================
Peter Erwin                   Max-Planck-Insitute for Extraterrestrial
erwin at mpe.mpg.de              Physics, Giessenbachstrasse
tel. +49 (0)89 30000 3695     85748 Garching, Germany
fax  +49 (0)89 30000 3495     http://www.mpe.mpg.de/~erwin