fist is a lightweight, FITS visualization tool built with Python, Panel, and Bokeh.
It is designed for rapid inspection, manipulation, and simple analysis of astronomical FITS images, with built-in support for instrument-specific configurations (such as ESPRESSO or KPF), multi-extension FITS files, interactive region and cuts analysis, and automatic folder monitoring, among others.
It can be used as a starting point to develop interactive or automated tools, for use in advanced analysis or quicklooks at the telescope.
fist runs as a small local web application and requires no installation beyond Python and your standard browser.
- Fast visualization of image slices from multi-extension FITS files
- Automatic sourcelet/apertures/fibers detection (3-D cubes)
- Percentile-based scaling, gamma, contrast, colormap control
- Image transforms: rotation, flips, negative and arithmetic operations
- Display of diagonal cut profiles and definition of analysis regions
- Interactive drawing with real-time updates and simple live statistics
- Automatic detection and display any FITS extension header
- Fixed-width formatting for readability; search bar for fast filtering
- Monitoring for new FITS files
- Automatic operation / manipulation of files for display and analysis
- Easy implementation of real-time pipelines and quick-look operations
- Load per-instrument configs and rules (patterns, extensions, sourcelet names, defaults)
- reads automatically multi-cube sourcelet and assigns predefined names (e.g. KPF)
- predefined configuration for spectrographs ESPRESSO, KPF, HARPS, HARPS-N, and CORALIE
- Enables future support for new instruments, pipelines or tailored observing modes of existing instruments
For instance, using conda
conda create -n fist python=3.10
conda activate fist
Clone the repository and move to its local folder
git clone https://github.com/pedrorfigueira/fist.git
cd fist
and run
pip install .
To install in editable / developer mode use the flag -e; this enables live code editing without having to reinstall.
fist runs on Python ≥ 3.10 and depends on the following packages:
All dependencies are declared in pyproject.toml and are installed automatically when running pip install ..
After installing the package, run:
python -c "import fist; print('fist package imported successfully')"
Expected result:
fist package imported successfully
If this fails, check that your environment is activated and dependencies are installed.
Run the viewer with the default instrument and a known directory using python
fist --instrument ESPRESSO --folder example
Expected behavior:
- A browser window should open automatically.
- The left control panel should be visible. It includes file selection tools and colapsed sections for Display, Transforms, Image Arithmetics, Cuts, Region, and Header.
- The right side should display the ESPRESSO test image.
- No traceback/errors should appear in the terminal.
Both a CCF_A and a guiding image examples are provided with the package for testing.
After installation, the software can be launched from the command line
fist --instrument INS --folder /path/to/data
Where:
--instrumentspecifies the instrument configuration to load--folderspecifies the directory containing FITS files
If --folder is omitted, the package uses the instrument’s default starting directory.
When launched, the interface opens in your browser and displays a series of controls (left) and FITS image pane (right).
The file browser is always expanded and allows direct scan / autofetch of files plus individual selection.
Below a series of collapsible section allows to control the display and image transformation, and do arithmetics between two images.
The selected image (or result of image operation) can be visualized and interacted upon (via cuts, regions, statistics) and the image header can be inspected.
fist/
│
├── README.md
├── CHANGELOG.md
├── LICENSE
├── pyproject.toml
├── .gitignore
│
└── fist/
├── __init__.py
├── app.py
├── fist.py
├── core/
│ ├── __init__.py
│ ├── state.py
│ ├── instruments.py
│ ├── sessionmng.py
│ ├── loader.py
│ └── layout.py
├── visu/
│ ├── scaling.py
│ ├── transforms.py
│ └── display.py
├── tools/
│ ├── __init__.py
│ ├── analysis.py
│ ├── arithmetic.py
│ └── header.py
├── static/
│ ├── FISTlogo.png
│ ├── G.ESPR.obs1.fits
│ ├── G.ESPR.obs2.fits
│ ├── r.ESPRE.obs1_CCF_A.fits
│ └── r.ESPRE.obs2_CCF_A.fits
└── docs/
└── FISTscreenshot.png
- add 1D display, splot style
- improve autosize capabilities / apply layout for different cases
- add CARMENES data
- add CORALIE new pipeline reduction scheme
This project is distributed under the MIT License.
Contributions are welcome! Please open issues or pull requests for:
- new instruments
- UI improvements
- bug fixes
- performance optimizations
Pedro Figueira acknowledges financial support from the Severo Ochoa grant CEX2021-001131-S funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033. Pedro Figueira is also funded by the European Union (ERC, THIRSTEE, 101164189). Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
This project depends on several open-source scientific and visualization packages. We gratefully acknowledge their authors and contributors:
NumPy and Scipy provide the core array infrastructure and numerical utilities used in backend processing. Astropy provides tools for FITS and for reading, parsing, and handling astronomical data formats. Matplotlib is use for plotting.
Bokeh enables interactive plotting and image rendering in the browser while Panel enables the UI layout, reactive widgets, and server backend that make this application possible as a web interface.
We extend sincere thanks to all of these communities for developing and maintaining the scientific Python ecosystem.
