neddy

Query the Nasa Extra-Galactic (NED) database via the command-line and programmatically.

Documentation for neddy is hosted by Read the Docs (development version and master version). The code lives on github. Please report any issues you find here.

Features

• A command-line suite to query NED for a given source name or via a sky-location conesearch.

• The ability to send multiple name or conesearch queries with a single command.

• Integrate neddy into your own python scripts to build your own workflows.

Installation

The best way to install or upgrade neddy is to use conda to install the package in its own isolated environment, as shown here:

conda create -n neddy python=3.9 neddy -c conda-forge
conda activate neddy

If you have previously installed neddy, a warning will be issued stating that a conda environment already exists; select ‘y’ when asked to remove the existing environment.

To check installation was successful run neddy -v. This should return the version number of the install.

Initialisation

Before using neddy you need to use the init command to generate a user settings file. Running the following creates a yaml settings file in your home folder under ~/.config/neddy/neddy.yaml:

neddy init

The file is initially populated with neddy’s default settings which can be adjusted to your preference.

If at any point the user settings file becomes corrupted or you just want to start afresh, simply trash the neddy.yaml file and rerun neddy init.

How to cite neddy

If you use neddy in your work, please cite using the following BibTeX entry:

@software{Young_neddy,
    author = {Young, David R.},
    doi = {10.5281/zenodo.8037632},
    license = {GPL-3.0-only},
    year = 2023,
    title = ,
    url = {https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.8037632}
}

Command-line Usage

Here is neddy’s entire CLI usage. More detail on each command can be found elsewhere in the docs.

Usage:
    neddy init
    neddy [-nuvr] cone <ra> <dec> <radiusArcsec> [--o <outputFile>]
    neddy [-nuvr] cones <pathToCoordinateList> <radiusArcsec> [--o <outputFile>]
    neddy [-v] name <objectName> [<objectName>...] [--o <outputFile>]

Commands:    
    init                  initialise neddy for the first time
    cone                  perform a single conesearch on NED and return any matches
    cones                 perform bulk conesearches on NED and return any matches
    name                  perform name search(es) on NED and return any matches

Arguments:
    ra                    ra (decimal degrees or sexegesimal)
    dec                   dec (decimal degrees or sexegesimal)
    radiusArcsec          radiusArcsec (conesearch radius)
    objectName            objectName (the name of the object)
    pathToCoordinateList  path to list of space separated ra & dec (one coordinate set per line, decimal degrees or sexegesimal)
    --o outputFile        path to outputFile 

Options:
    -h, --help            show this help message
    -n, --nearest         return the nearest object only
    -u, --unclassified    include unclassified extra-galactic objects
    -v, --verbose         return more metadata for matches
    -r, --redshift        redshift must be available