SunPy: Python for Solar Physics Data Analysis
Abstract
In recent years, Python, a free cross platform general purpose high-level programming language, has seen widespread adoption among the scientific community resulting in the availability of wide range of software, from numerical computation and machine learning to spectral analysis and visualization. SunPy is a software suite specializing in providing the tools necessary to analyze solar and heliospheric datasets in Python. It provides a free and open-source alternative to the IDL-based SolarSoft (SSW) solar data analysis environment. We present the current capabilities of SunPy which include WCS-aware map objects that allow simple overplotting of data from multiple image FITS files; time-series objects that allow overplotting of multiple lightcurves, and integration with online services such as The Virtual Solar Observatory (VSO) and The Heliophysics Event Knowledgebase (HEK). SunPy also provides functionality that is not currently available in SSW such as advanced time series manipulation routines and support for working with solar data stored using JPEG 2000. We present examples of solar data analysis in SunPy, and show how Python-based solar data-analysis can leverage the many existing data analysis tools currently available in Python. We discuss the future goals of the project and encourage interested users to become involved in the planning and development of SunPy.
- Publication:
-
American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #220
- Pub Date:
- May 2012
- Bibcode:
- 2012AAS...22052207H