wsclean-pydec

A Python deconvolution support has been added, but not yet released, by André Offringa to WSClean, which can now execute a python script during each major deconvolution iteration.

Usage

The Python support in WSClean is called by the parameter -python-deconvolution <filename>, which runs a custom deconvolution algorithm written in Python. For example, a full Python deconvolution WSClean run looks like this:

wsclean -size 1024 1024 -scale 1amin -niter 1000000 -mgain 0.8 -auto-threshold 5 \
  -python-deconvolution deconvolution-example.py 1052736496-averaged.ms

Python scripts

In the python_script directory there are useful scripts (and codes), e.g., to handle fits files.

• fix_source_list.py: it adds a progressive number after the source name if there are more than one source with the same name.

• genBlank.py: it takes in input a template fits file to generate a blank fits (i.e. setting all pixels to zero) with the same template features.

• gen_simMS.py: it generates an MS file with visibilities simulated from a sky model, using the predict step of the DPPP pipeline. A (white) noise, drawn by a complex Gaussian distribution CN(0,σ), is then added to visibilities.

• plot_fits.py: it generates plots of a fits image using WCS coordinates. The output image can be saved in pdf or png format. Other plotting options can be listed with python plot_fits.py -h (an updated and improved version can be found here).