astrobase.checkplot package

Contains functions to make checkplots: quick views for determining periodic variability for light curves and sanity-checking results from period-finding functions (e.g., from periodbase).

The astrobase.checkplot.pkl.checkplot_pickle() function takes, for a single object, an arbitrary number of results from independent period-finding functions (e.g. BLS, PDM, AoV, GLS, etc.) in periodbase, and generates a pickle file that contains object and variability information, finder chart, mag series plot, and for each period-finding result: a periodogram and phased mag series plots for an arbitrary number of ‘best periods’.

This is intended for use with an external checkplot viewer: the Tornado webapp checkplotserver.py, but you can also use the astrobase.checkplot.pkl_png.checkplot_pickle_to_png() function to render this to a PNG that will look something like:

[    finder    ] [  objectinfo  ] [ variableinfo ] [ unphased LC  ]
[ periodogram1 ] [ phased LC P1 ] [ phased LC P2 ] [ phased LC P3 ]
[ periodogram2 ] [ phased LC P1 ] [ phased LC P2 ] [ phased LC P3 ]
                                 .
                                 .
[ periodogramN ] [ phased LC P1 ] [ phased LC P2 ] [ phased LC P3 ]

for N independent period-finding methods producing:

  • periodogram1,2,3…N: the periodograms from each method
  • phased LC P1,P2,P3: the phased lightcurves using the best 3 peaks in each periodogram

The astrobase.checkplot.png.checkplot_png() function takes a single period-finding result and makes the following 3 x 3 grid and writes to a PNG:

[LSP plot + objectinfo] [     unphased LC     ] [ period 1 phased LC ]
[period 1 phased LC /2] [period 1 phased LC x2] [ period 2 phased LC ]
[ period 3 phased LC  ] [period 4 phased LC   ] [ period 5 phased LC ]

The astrobase.checkplot.png.twolsp_checkplot_png() function makes a similar plot for two independent period-finding routines and writes to a PNG:

[ pgram1 + objectinfo ] [        pgram2       ] [     unphased LC     ]
[ pgram1 P1 phased LC ] [ pgram1 P2 phased LC ] [ pgram1 P3 phased LC ]
[ pgram2 P1 phased LC ] [ pgram2 P2 phased LC ] [ pgram2 P3 phased LC ]

where:

  • pgram1 is the plot for the periodogram in the lspinfo1 dict
  • pgram1 P1, P2, and P3 are the best three periods from lspinfo1
  • pgram2 is the plot for the periodogram in the lspinfo2 dict
  • pgram2 P1, P2, and P3 are the best three periods from lspinfo2