Python Search And Discovery

Python Search And Discovery (PYSAD) is a Python tool designed for rapid observing of the LIGO Virgo Collaboration (LVC) localization region resulting from a gravitational-wave event. Localizations can be poor, sometimes containing thousands of galaxies. Manually submitting this many observations can be incredibly cumbersome and prone to mistakes.

PYSAD attempts to streamline this process by leveraging the Skynet API to schedule and modify observations of galaxies with high likelihood of being the host galaxy of the event. These galaxies are programmatically retrieved from the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database.

Setup

• Clone the pysad repo to a local directory.

  git clone https://github.com/astrodyl/pysad.git
  

• Create a Python virtual environment using Python >= 3.8.

  python -m venv location/to/create/name_of_venv
  

• Activate the virtual environment and change directories to the pysad repo and then install the requirements.

  # Omit 'source' if using cmd prompt or PowerShell on Windows
  source location/of/venv/Scripts/activate
  
  # Change directories to the repo
  cd location/of/pysad
  
  # Install all requirements
  pip install -r requirements.txt

• Store your Skynet API token. Log into Skynet and navigate to My Account under My Observatory. On the right side navigation window, click on the Settings option. Scroll down to find your API token. Copy and paste this token into the pysad/config/api.ini configuration file. Make sure to keep this token private.

Run

The entry point to run pysad is __main__.py located in pysad/pysad/__main__.py. Inside the main method, there is a params dictionary that contains and describes the required values to run. Most of these values are pointers to the configuration files.

Since there are numerous parameters are that are required but not frequently changed, I make use of configuration files stored in pysad/config. See the existing configurations for examples on how to create your own.

To run using the terminal, simply run the main file: python.exe __main__.py