Awesome Astronomy Tools

A collection of awesome tools, resources, tips, libraries and shiny toys for astronomy research and the people who recommend them. What improves our day-to-day productivity?

Add a link under each category with a short description and your name next to it.

• Tools
• Editors
• Data Analysis
• Plotting
• Programming
• Git & GitHub
• Web
• Simulation
• Who knows what at the department

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Tools

• ClipMenu -- This tool maintains a history of your clipboard, so that you can paste old snippets of text, images, URLs, etc. (stefano)
• z -- A shell command to jump around directories. z learns your most used directories and lets you cd to them by only specifying a piece of the name, e.g. z sys will cd to ~/Projects/Systemic2 on my machine. (stefano)
• GNU Parallel -- Runs jobs in parallel using one or more computers from the command line. (stefano)
• Period04 -- Fourier Transform software suite for Fourier analysis of astronomical data (full FTs). Ask me if you're interested in command line (batch file) capabilities and/or a Python wrapper. (Keaton)
• iTerm2 -- New and improved Terminal application for Mac OSX. (Jacob)
• cowsay (brew install cowsay, port install cowsay, and even available as a Python package) -- Print out your error messages with cute ASCII animals (stefano)

cowsay "Hello"
 _______ 
< Hello >
 ------- 
        \   ^__^
         \  (oo)\_______
            (__)\       )\/\
                ||----w |
                ||     ||

Editors

• Emacs -- The ultimate editor nirvana. (stefano)
• Sublime Text 2 -- A graphical editor with a lot of built-in features (Kevin)
• pycharm -- An interactive development environment (IDE) for Python. (Kevin)
• rstudio -- An IDE for python with lots of build-in features. (Emma)
• Diffuse -- Graphical Diff/Merge tool. Best installed using your OS's package manager, e.g. 'brew install diffuse' (Jacob)
• IPython Notebook -- Interactive computational environment where you can combine code execution, text, mathematics and plots. (Jacob)

Data Analysis

• Data Science at the command line -- A useful list of commands that can help with working with data. (stefano)
• wxMaxima -- A free alternative to Mathematica. (stefano)
• TOPCAT -- An interactive data analysis and plotting tool. (Yi-Kuan)
• pandas -- A convenience layer on top of numpy arrays. Also great for database operations (Kevin)
• yt -- python package for analyzing and visualizing volumetric, multi-resolution data from astrophysical simulations. (aaron)

Plotting

• Matplotlib Gallery Matplotlib is the basis for all python plotting. Here's a gallery of plots for when you know what you want, but not how to make it. (Jacob)
• Seaborn Python visualization library based on matplotlib for attractive graphics (gully)
• D3.js Awesome in browser figures! (gully)

Programming

• Markwardt IDL Library - Some useful IDL procedures that are publicly available (jeff)
• Homegrown IDL Routines by John Johnson - Another page of useful IDL procedures (jeff)
• IPython -- Interactive Python Terminal, WAAAAAY better than the default. 'conda install ipython' (Jacob)
• Ureka Astronomy Software Package - Finally a pain-free way to install IRAF, PyRAF, and much more (Keaton)
• Coyote IDL Library - IDL as it should work, especially with regard to plotting. Lots of capabilities (Natalie)
• Search PyPI for 'astronomy'. (Sam)
• Python Cookbook. Then read "Learning Python" and "Programming Python". (Sam)
• Wakari Gallery. Great collection of IPython Notebook tutorials that can be run on Conintuum's cloud platform. (Sam)

Git and GitHub

• git - the simple guide - Really good instructions on how to use git. (Kyle)
• Git prompt - Get the status and branch name of the git repository inside your prompt. (stefano)
• A successful git branching model. (Sam)
• GitHub Guides. (Sam)

Web

• Emscripten - Converts C/C++/Fortran code into JavaScript, so that the code can run hosted in the browser. (stefano)
• Wakari - Host iPython notebooks on the Web. (stefano)
• Atomic Line List - Database of atomic and ionic spectral lines by Peter van Hoof (Kyle)

Simulation Packages

• Hyperion - Three dimentional Monte Carlo dust radiative transfer code, working in parallel. (yaolun)
• RADMC-3D - Three dimantional Monte Carlo radiative transfer code, not working in parallel. Can do both line and dust. (yaolun)

Who knows what at the department

• Stefano: C, Java, JavaScript, & R zealot
• Jeff Silverman: IRAF, IDL, PHP, MySQL
• Kyle Kaplan: Python 2.7, self proclaimed DS9 wizard
• Jeremy Ritter: C/C++, Fortran, Unix, shell scripting, and many other computering topics
• Keaton Bell: IDL, IRAF, Python.
• Yao-Lun Yang: Python, IDL, Hyperion, RADMC-3D
• Jacob: IPython, IPython Notebooks, numpy/scipy/pandas, python internals/memory management.
• Aaron: C, Python, Cython, Julia, Mathematica.
• Sam Harrold: Python, PyData tools.