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T. Andrew Manning edited this page Jun 22, 2026 · 5 revisions

2026/06/22 Blast spring meeting

Agenda

Notes

  • [Andrew] Will continue working on dataset versioning
  • [Abhiram] Will continue working on API revamp milestone
  • [Dhvanil] Adding host spectral information to datasets. Working on fetching host spectrum from one of several remote catalogs DESI, SDSS, NED (in order of desirability). astroquery connects directly to SDSS and seems faster and more reliable than SPARCL but at the expense of multiple remote API queries.
  • [Dhvanil] First pull request will involve implementing spectral downloads, plot on result page with bokeh
  • [David] working on web form for updating host galaxy coordinates with auto retrigger, some hook for triggering dataset revision
  • [David] still working on FrankenBlast in the
  • We may want to reconcile the old debug_utils.py developer tools with the newer Django custom command method via dev.py.

Action items

  • [Dhvanil] Create issues to define logically distinct goals. Capture the ideas clearly, and iterate on them as issue comments when possible.
  • [David] Create an issue for expanding the data object query sophistication by enhancing the DRF filter subclasses.
  • [David] Create an issue for adding the new feature: a web form for updating host information
  • [Andrew] Consider add citation info to dataset export in "metadata" collection.

2026/06/11 Meeting notes

6-month time scale

  • Dataset versioning: image data is static, might not need to version-control those. SED data files could also be omitted.
  • Incorporate spectral data into Blast
  • Incorporate Starlight, similar SED fitting but using spectra.
  • FrankenBlast integration to increase redshift range and photo-z estimation
  • Interactivity: can users fix poor fits or bad apertures interactively on result pages

Desired improvements

  • Blast user forum for fostering longer-term developer & user community
  • Bulk reprocessing and debugging for users
  • API token for authenticated endpoints like export
  • Port Mac-specific Docker fixes from MUSES CE
  • Users dropping bad filters
  • Add LSST survey
  • Consider using SED fit to make a guess at Supernova type using ML model
  • observability and monitoring for capturing production logs
  • update host galaxies and info with a user form

Evaluation of existing issues

  • Background estimation problem with masked pixels [Bug]
  • pre-compute transient data and post it to the database (solved)
  • Finish adding example transient data (done)
  • Add docker minimum resource requirements to documentation (obsoele)
  • Have an admin monitor dashboard (wont fix)
  • Safe way to automatically squash migrations (close until a problem)
  • Add documentation about using the web interface (done)
  • [Bug] Mask stars to reduce contamination (close with reason)
  • [Bug] Bad host match / cutout selection for some very nearby objects (consider closing with reference to the interactive)
  • serve FITS images via the Blast API (done due to export)

Meeting schedule

Tentative plan is to meet every other Wednesday at 16:00 Chicago time. Expected off-time:

  • Andrew June 24 - July 15
  • David July 24
  • Dvhanil August 17-31

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