Astropy

Overview

Astropy is the community standard Python library for astronomy, providing core functionality for astronomical data analysis and computation. This skill provides comprehensive guidance and tools for working with astropy's extensive capabilities across coordinate systems, file I/O, units and quantities, time systems, cosmology, modeling, and more.

When to Use This Skill

This skill should be used when:

• Working with FITS files (reading, writing, inspecting, modifying)
• Performing coordinate transformations between astronomical reference frames
• Calculating cosmological distances, ages, or other quantities
• Handling astronomical time systems and conversions
• Working with physical units and dimensional analysis
• Processing astronomical data tables with specialized column types
• Fitting models to astronomical data
• Converting between pixel and world coordinates (WCS)
• Performing robust statistical analysis on astronomical data
• Visualizing astronomical images with proper scaling and stretching