astrodata

[teald]

Submitting Author: D.J. Teal (@teald)
All current maintainers: @teald, @chris-simpson, @jehturner
Package Name: astrodata
One-Line Description of Package: Common interface for astronomical data products.
Repository Link: https://github.com/GeminiDRSoftware/astrodata
Version submitted: 2.9.2
Editor: @hamogu
Reviewer 1: @aaryapatil
Reviewer 2: @mwcraig
Archive: https://zenodo.org/records/14804283
JOSS DOI: TBD
Version accepted: 2.10.1
Date accepted (month/day/year): 02/04/2025

---

Code of Conduct & Commitment to Maintain Package

• I agree to abide by pyOpenSci's Code of Conduct during the review process and in maintaining my package after should it be accepted.
• I have read and will commit to package maintenance after the review as per the pyOpenSci Policies Guidelines.

Description

astrodata is a package meant to facilitate developing common interfaces for astronomical data formats. Often, specific instruments and models will have different ways of storing their data, including metadata. astrodata offers a single interface that uses metadata to resolve these disparate file formats, while enabling common operations and values to share the same interface. The abstraction is meant to be conceptually simple and meaningful to scientists.

Previously, astrodata was a core module within the DRAGONS package, and has been used for the various instruments that exist at the Gemini Observatory. It has proved useful in consolidating differences in metadata and data formatting between instruments that produce FITS files, which is a common pattern in astronomical data handling. Alongside automating interface selection based on these differences, it also comes with helpful operators and methods out-of-the-box, by extending astropy's NDData class.

Scope

• Please indicate which category or categories.
  Check out our package scope page to learn more about our
  scope. (If you are unsure of which category you fit, we suggest you make a pre-submission inquiry):

  • Data retrieval
  • Data extraction
  • Data processing/munging
  • Data deposition
  • Data validation and testing
  • Data visualization¹
  • Workflow automation
  • Citation management and bibliometrics
  • Scientific software wrappers
  • Database interoperability

Domain Specific

• Geospatial
• Education

Community Partnerships

If your package is associated with an
existing community please check below:

• Astropy:My package adheres to Astropy community standards
• Pangeo: My package adheres to the Pangeo standards listed in the pyOpenSci peer review guidebook

• For all submissions, explain how the and why the package falls under the categories you indicated above. In your explanation, please address the following points (briefly, 1-2 sentences for each):

  • Who is the target audience and what are scientific applications of this package?

    Astronomers & astronomical software developers

  • Are there other Python packages that accomplish the same thing? If so, how does yours differ?

    There are no specific packages we are aware of. There is some overlap with the gwcs package and our wcs module, but we are planning to collaborate with that package for future development and to reconsolidate those overlaps. Astrodata offers an interface based on astropy.nddata.NDData, but allowing more than one instance to be mapped to the same file (e.g., to multiple sets of FITS extensions).

  • If you made a pre-submission enquiry, please paste the link to the corresponding issue, forum post, or other discussion, or @tag the editor you contacted:

    N/A

Technical checks

For details about the pyOpenSci packaging requirements, see our packaging guide. Confirm each of the following by checking the box. This package:

• does not violate the Terms of Service of any service it interacts with.
• uses an OSI approved license.
• contains a README with instructions for installing the development version.
• includes documentation with examples for all functions.
• contains a tutorial with examples of its essential functions and uses.
• has a test suite.
• has continuous integration setup, such as GitHub Actions CircleCI, and/or others.

Publication Options

• Do you wish to automatically submit to the Journal of Open Source Software? If so:

JOSS Checks

• The package has an obvious research application according to JOSS's definition in their submission requirements. Be aware that completing the pyOpenSci review process does not guarantee acceptance to JOSS. Be sure to read their submission requirements (linked above) if you are interested in submitting to JOSS.
• The package is not a "minor utility" as defined by JOSS's submission requirements: "Minor ‘utility’ packages, including ‘thin’ API clients, are not acceptable." pyOpenSci welcomes these packages under "Data Retrieval", but JOSS has slightly different criteria.
• The package contains a paper.md matching JOSS's requirements with a high-level description in the package root or in inst/.
• The package is deposited in a long-term repository with the DOI:

Note: JOSS accepts our review as theirs. You will NOT need to go through another full review. JOSS will only review your paper.md file. Be sure to link to this pyOpenSci issue when a JOSS issue is opened for your package. Also be sure to tell the JOSS editor that this is a pyOpenSci reviewed package once you reach this step.

Are you OK with Reviewers Submitting Issues and/or pull requests to your Repo Directly?

This option will allow reviewers to open smaller issues that can then be linked to PR's rather than submitting a more dense text based review. It will also allow you to demonstrate addressing the issue via PR links.

• Yes I am OK with reviewers submitting requested changes as issues to my repo. Reviewers will then link to the issues in their submitted review.

Confirm each of the following by checking the box.

• I have read the author guide.
• I expect to maintain this package for at least 2 years and can help find a replacement for the maintainer (team) if needed.

Please fill out our survey

• Last but not least please fill out our pre-review survey. This helps us track
  submission and improve our peer review process. We will also ask our reviewers
  and editors to fill this out.

P.S. Have feedback/comments about our review process? Leave a comment here

Editor and Review Templates

The editor template can be found here.

The review template can be found here.

Footnotes

1. Please fill out a pre-submission inquiry before submitting a data visualization package. ↩

[Batalex]

Editor in Chief checks

Hi there! Thank you for submitting your package for pyOpenSci review. Below are the basic checks that your package needs to pass to begin our review. If some of these are missing, we will ask you to work on them before the review process begins.

Please check our Python packaging guide for more information on the elements below.

• Installation The package can be installed from a community repository such as PyPI (preferred), and/or a community channel on conda (e.g. conda-forge, bioconda).
  • The package imports properly into a standard Python environment import package.
    The package installation does not install the dependencies
• Fit The package meets criteria for fit and overlap.
• Documentation The package has sufficient online documentation to allow us to evaluate package function and scope without installing the package. This includes:
  • User-facing documentation that overviews how to install and start using the package.
  • Short tutorials that help a user understand how to use the package and what it can do for them.
  • API documentation (documentation for your code's functions, classes, methods and attributes): this includes clearly written docstrings with variables defined using a standard docstring format.
• Core GitHub repository Files
  • README The package has a README.md file with clear explanation of what the package does, instructions on how to install it, and a link to development instructions.
  • Contributing File The package has a CONTRIBUTING.md file that details how to install and contribute to the package.
  • Code of Conduct The package has a CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md file.
  • License The package has an OSI approved license.
    Seems like a BSD3 derivative is ok.

NOTE: We prefer that you have development instructions in your documentation too.

• Issue Submission Documentation All of the information is filled out in the YAML header of the issue (located at the top of the issue template).
• Automated tests Package has a testing suite and is tested via a Continuous Integration service.
• Repository The repository link resolves correctly.
• Package overlap The package doesn't entirely overlap with the functionality of other packages that have already been submitted to pyOpenSci.
• Archive (JOSS only, may be post-review): The repository DOI resolves correctly.
• Version (JOSS only, may be post-review): Does the release version given match the GitHub release (v1.0.0)?

---

• Initial onboarding survey was filled out
  We appreciate each maintainer of the package filling out this survey individually. 🙌
  Thank you authors in advance for setting aside five to ten minutes to do this. It truly helps our organization. 🙌

---

---

Editor comments

Nothing to say from the EiC initial perspective, it's a strong submission!

[Batalex]

Hey there @teald,

@hamogu will take over this submission as the editor 🫶 You are in good hands, happy reviewing y'all!

[hamogu]

Editor response to review:

---

Editor comments

👋 Hi @aaryapatil and @mwcraig! Thank you for volunteering to review
for pyOpenSci!

Please fill out our pre-review survey

Before beginning your review, please fill out our pre-review survey. This helps us improve all aspects of our review and better understand our community. No personal data will be shared from this survey - it will only be used in an aggregated format by our Executive Director to improve our processes and programs.

• reviewer 1 survey completed.
• reviewer 2 survey completed.
• reviewer 3 (if applicable)

The following resources will help you complete your review:

1. Here is the reviewers guide. This guide contains all of the steps and information needed to complete your review.
2. Here is the review template that you will need to fill out and submit
   here as a comment, once your review is complete.

Please get in touch with any questions or concerns! Your review is due:

Reviewers: @aaryapatil @mwcraig
Due date: end of June