This Python course for ESAC is adapted from the Practical Python for Astronomers course written by Tom Aldcroft, Tom Robitaille, Brian Refsdal, Gus Muench (Copyright 2011, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory) and released under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
The present course has been restructured and adapted to reflect the interests of the ESAC audience.
The ESAC Python course is a series of hands-on workshops to explore the Python language and the powerful analysis tools it provides. The emphasis is on using Python to solve real-world problems that astronomers are likely to encounter in research.
Workshop topics
The workshop schedule is as follows. Except for the first introductory session all workshops are hands-on and participants should bring a laptop.
| Date | Topic | Time | Presenter |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30th May | Installation and Understanding Packages | 9:30-10:00 | Eli |
| 30th May | Introduction to Python for ESAC | 10:00-11:00 | Eli |
| 30th May | Introduction to Pure Python | 11:30-13:00 | Neil |
| 30th May | Reading and Writing Files | 14:00-15:30 | Neil |
| 30th May | IPython, Numpy and Scipy | 15:45-17:00 | Pieter |
| 31st May | IPython, Numpy and Scipy continued | 9:30-11:00 | Pieter |
| 31st May | Introduction to Matplotlib | 11:30-13:00 | Pieter |
| 31st May | Publication quality plots | 14:00-15:30 | Neil |
| 31st May | Plotting images and APLpy | 15:45-17:00 | Eli |
| 1st June | APLpy continued | 9:30-11:00 | Eli |
| 1st June | Fitting and modelling, Q&A | 11:30-13:00 | Eli |
| 1st June | urllib2, ATPy, examples | 14:00-15:30 | Neil |
| 1st June | multiprocessing, f2py, more examples | 15:45-17:00 | Pieter |
The content presented here is suitable for self-study by those wishing to learn Python for astronomy or other scientific research applications.
A greater goal is for those knowledgable in Python to teach the workshop series at their local institutions, adapting the content as desired. To that end we have developed the content in Sphinx RestructuredText and hosted the source on github at https://github.com/python4astronomers/. Anyone interested can clone the repository or download a tarball and make modifications needed to present the material locally.
We would also welcome comments, fixes, or suggestions for improvement. This can be done as a Github issue or pull request, or by sending email to aldcroft@head.cfa.harvard.edu.
The workshop material here was presented in the Spring of 2011 at the Harvard / Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. A range of about 25 to 50 people participated in the different workshops, which were 1.5 hours in duration. Based on our experience a 2 hour slot would have been more reasonable to allow time for the exercises and discussion.
The workshop presentations are formatted as Sphinx web documents instead of the more traditional slide presentation. This was a natural choice for the authors who all use Sphinx for Python documenation. Further inspiration was drawn from Dumping PowerPoint in Favor of Web Sites. This site highlights by discussion and examples the advantages in using a web-based study guide. In particular we found the non-linear format (e.g. jumping to different sections or web sites) and ability to show longer examples were quite valuable.
Having full prose text results in a document which is far more useful as a standalone study guide than presentation slides. Ironically it also reduces the temptation to read from the screen.