Setup

Certain modules depend on certain environmental variables to figure out where the data lives and how it’s organized. It is recommended that conventional SDSS file naming and directory structures are followed. SDSS generally follows structure shown below:

boss

├ photo

│ └── redux

│ ├── photoRunAll-dr{DR}.par

│ └── runList.par

└ photoObj

├── 301

│ └── [RUN]

│ └── [CAMCOL]

│ └── photoObj-{PADDED_RUN}-CAMCOL-{PADDED_FIELD}.fits

└── frames

└── [RUN]

└── [CAMCOL]

└── frame-{FILTER}-{PADDED_RUN}-CAMCOL-{PADDED_FIELD}.fits

Where the RUN marks the integer designation of the desired run (i.e. 94, 2888) and PADDED_RUN marks the integer run designation padded to 6 digits by preceding zeros (i.e. 000094, 002888). The slight difference between the PADDED_RUN and PADDED_FIELD is the fact that the field is only padded to 4 digits The square bracketted items (i.e. [RUN] means a directory named 94 or 2888). Finally there are two files requried to detect linear features. One is the image itself - these are the frame files (i.e. frame-i-000094-1-0168.fits) and the other required file is the catalog of all detected sources on that image - these are the photoObj files.

The files photoRunAll-dr{DR}.par and runList.par store the parameters of all the runs that SDSS made up to the DR (Data Release number). This is determined by the Data Release number from which the data was selected and downloaded from - f.e. for DR10 data release the appropriate file is photoRunAll-dr10.par. These files are downloadable from the SDSS servers.

The SDSS directory structure can be overriden by providing the required environmental variables. The environmental variables point to different folders and subfolders of this structure. They are listed and explained in the following table:

Env. Var. Name	Points to
BOSS	Top level boss directory
PHOTO_OBJ	boss/photoObj directory
PHOTO_REDUX	boss/photo/redux directory

These variables can be set through the terminal prior, or after, importing the lfd library by using the following commands:

export $ENVVAR=/some/path

or:

setenv $ENVVAR=/some/path

depending on the shell and OS used. Or they can be set by using top-level functionality in the lfd module.

lfd.setup_detecttrails(bosspath=None, photoobjpath=None, photoreduxpath=None, debugpath=None)

Sets up the environmental paths BOSS, BOSS_PHOTOOBJ, PHOTO_REDUX and DEBUG_PATH required for detecttrails package. Defining custom BOSS, BOSS_PHOTOOBJ and PHOTO_REDUX variables allows data not to follow the SDSS convention.

Parameters:

• bosspath (str) – The path to which BOSS environmental variable will be set to. This is the “boss” top directory. Default is set to ~/Desktop/boss
• photoobjpath (str) – The path to which BOSS_PHOTOOBJ env. var. will be set to. Default is $BOSS/photoObj.
• photoreduxpath (str) – The path to which PHOTO_REDUX env. var. will be set to. By default set to $BOSS/photo/redux-
• debugpath (str) – The path to which DEBUG_PATH env. var. will be set to. The current dir by default. Used to run detecttrails module in debug mode.

lfd.setup_createjobs(photoreduxpath=None)

Sets up the environmental path of PHOTO_REDUX only! Minimum environment required for certain createjobs package functionality.

Parameters:photoreduxpath (str) – The path to which PHOTO_REDUX env. var. will be set to. Defaults to ‘~/Desktop/boss/photoredux’.