sbpy Documentation

sbpy is an Astropy affiliated package for small-body planetary astronomy.

For an overview on the expected structure and functionality of sbpy, please refer to the About sbpy page; the Status Page page provides an overview on the implementation status of all modules and functions.

The development of sbpy is expected to conclude with version 1.0 in 2024.

Current Status

Getting Started

• About sbpy
  • What is sbpy?
  • Why sbpy?
  • What is implemented in sbpy?
  • Module Structure
  • Design Principles - The Zen of sbpy
• Installation
  • Requirements
  • Optional dependencies
  • Using pip
  • Using conda
  • Using Git+Pip
• Tutorials
• Status Page
  • Current development status

User Documentation

Data Structures: Orbits, Ephemerides, Observations, and Physical Properties

• Data Module (sbpy.data)
• Data Container Field Name Reference
• Data Containers (sbpy.data.DataClass)
• Ephemeris Objects (sbpy.data.Ephem)
• Small-Body Name Parsing (sbpy.data.Names)
• Observational Data Objects (sbpy.data.Obs)
• Orbit Data Objects (sbpy.data.Orbit)
• Physical Data Objects (sbpy.data.Phys)

Photometry and Spectroscopy

• Spectral Standards and Photometric Calibration (sbpy.calib)
  • Controlling the default spectra
  • Photometric calibration (without spectra or synphot)
  • Observe the Sun
  • Reference/API
• Spectroscopy Module (sbpy.spectroscopy)
  • Introduction
  • Spectral Gradients
  • Spectral Reddening
  • Reference/API
• Spectroscopy Sources Module (sbpy.spectroscopy.sources)
  • Blackbody spectra
  • Developers’ Notes
  • Reference/API
• Photometry Module (sbpy.photometry)
  • Introduction
  • Disk-integrated Phase Function Models
  • Filter Bandpasses
  • Reference/API

Activity

• Activity Module (sbpy.activity)
  • Introduction
    • Dust comae (sbpy.activity.dust)
    • Gas Comae (sbpy.activity.gas)
  • Apertures
  • Reference/API
    • Functions
    • Classes
    • Class Inheritance Diagram

Miscellaneous

• Bibliography Tracking Module (sbpy.bib)
• Exceptions Module (sbpy.exceptions)
• Units Module (sbpy.units)
• Utilities Module (sbpy.utils)

External packages that have been modified as part of sbpy

• pyoorb: additional functionality for ephemerides computation, orbit transformation, and orbit propagation

• astroquery: added submodules jplhorizons, jplsbdb, jplspec, imcce, and modified mpc

Reference

• API Reference
  • sbpy.data
  • sbpy.activity
  • sbpy.photometry
  • sbpy.spectroscopy
  • sbpy.bib
  • sbpy.exceptions
  • sbpy.units
  • sbpy.utils
• Data Container Field Name Reference
  • How do I use this Table?
  • Special Case: Epoch
  • Field Name List

Developer Documentation

• Contributing to sbpy
  • Communicating with the developers
  • Testing
  • Reporting Problems
  • Code Contributions
• Design Principles
  • Physical parameters are quantities
  • Epochs must be Time objects
  • Use sbpy DataClass objects
  • Append fields to DataClass at the user’s request
  • Cite relevant works
  • Exceptions for private functions or speed

Acknowledgments

sbpy is supported by NASA Planetary Data Archiving, Restoration, and Tools (PDART) Grant Numbers 80NSSC18K0987 and 80NSSC22K0143.

If you use sbpy in your work, please acknowledge it by citing

Mommert, Kelley, de-Val Borro, Li et al., (2019). sbpy: A Python module for small-body planetary astronomy. Journal of Open Source Software, 4(38), 1426

and also please consider using the bib reference tracking system to properly acknowledge and reference the methods you used in the preparation of your manuscript.

The core sbpy Team is introduced here.