[AstroPy] Some Feedbacks about Astropy

[Thomas Robitaille]

Paul Kuin wrote:
> Reading all this, I think that part of the success of the IDL Astro
> library is due to having one head, Wayne Landsman, put it all together.
> This reads like a conversation on the tower of Babel. Everyone their own
> method.  Someone should take the time to check and compare all the
> different implementations. Some funding for such work would be very
> useful and save on duplication.  I think this is a task that the IAU
> could(should?) be involved in.

Reducing duplication is precisely the goal of the Astropy project - in
fact, we have a rule that 'affiliated' packages should not duplicate
functionality from the core, and also avoid duplication amongst one
another. See the original vision document:

  http://docs.astropy.org/en/stable/development/vision.html

If you are interested in getting involved, you can join the astropy-dev
mailing list. As part of the Astropy project, there have already been a
number of successes in merging existing packages to provide a core
implementation (for example the cosmology routines).

On the more specific topic of re-projection - this is clearly a highly
requested feature, and I think it should be targeted as something that
should have an implementation in the core astropy package that then gets
used by all other packages.

As a side note, the fact there was more than one reply to the original
question is a testimony to the strength of the development community in
Python - people are clearly not just waiting for one person to just
write it all. Yes, we need to all make an effort to not duplicate things
needlessly, but on the other hand, having two different ways of
approaching the same problem is not always bad.

Cheers,
Tom

> Paul 
> 
> 
> On Wed, Jul 2, 2014 at 6:15 AM, Guang Yang <yg1991 at mail.ustc.edu.cn
> <mailto:yg1991 at mail.ustc.edu.cn>> wrote:
> 
>     Thank all of you for giving those advices. I think I won't bother to
>     switch between python and IDL in my next project. ^^
> 
>     Best wishes,
>     Guang
> 
> 
>         -----Original email-----
>         *From:* "Sofia Lianou" <slianou at uwo.ca <mailto:slianou at uwo.ca>>
>         *Sent Time:* Jul 2, 2014 5:14:53 AM
>         *To:* "Astronomical Python mailing list" <astropy at scipy.org
>         <mailto:astropy at scipy.org>>, "Adam Ginsburg"
>         <adam.g.ginsburg at gmail.com <mailto:adam.g.ginsburg at gmail.com>>
>         *Cc:* "Pauline Barmby" <pbarmby at uwo.ca <mailto:pbarmby at uwo.ca>>
> 
>         *Subject:* Re: [AstroPy] Some Feedbacks about Astropy
> 
>         Hello,
> 
>         This is something that imagecube is doing, too, and the package
>         is hosted here:
>         http://sophiathl.github.io/imagecube/
> 
>         Beta release to follow soon, along with proper documentation.
> 
>         Cheers,
>         Sophia, Pauline, and Jeff
> 
>         On 07/01/14, *Adam Ginsburg * <adam.g.ginsburg at gmail.com
>         <mailto:adam.g.ginsburg at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>         > 1. I find no tools to align two images, i.e. to uniform
>>         their astrometry, pixel scale, image size and etc. 
>>         hastrom.pro <http://hastrom.pro>
>>         (http://idlastro.gsfc.nasa.gov/ftp/pro/astrom/hastrom.pro) is
>>         a good example to perform such a task.
>>
>>         I've written a tool to do that:
>>         https://github.com/keflavich/FITS_tools/blob/master/FITS_tools/hcongrid.py
>>         ...I think it does what hastrom does, not hcongrid, which means I
>>         should change the name.
>>
>>         Otherwise, you can use the montage wrapper:
>>         http://www.astropy.org/montage-wrapper/
>>
>>
>>         -- 
>>         Adam Ginsburg
>>         Fellow, European Southern Observatory
>>         http://www.adamgginsburg.com/
>>         _______________________________________________
>>         AstroPy mailing list
>>         AstroPy at scipy.org <mailto:AstroPy at scipy.org>
>>         http://mail.scipy.org/mailman/listinfo/astropy
> 
> 
> 
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> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> 
> * * * * * * * * http://www.mssl.ucl.ac.uk/~npmk/ * * * *
> Dr. N.P.M. Kuin      (n.kuin at ucl.ac.uk <mailto:n.kuin at ucl.ac.uk>)      
> phone +44-(0)1483 (prefix) -204927 (work)
> mobile +44(0)7806985366  skype ID: npkuin
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