Surveys

This document describes software used to parse catalogs and data from public surveys. In the context of FRB research, of course.

These codes have extra dependencies that are detailed in the Installation notes.

Usage

Catalog

Here is an example of grabbing a catalog of sources around an input coordinate from the DES survey:

from astropy.coordinates import SkyCoord
from astropy import units
#
coord = SkyCoord('J214425.25-403400.81', unit=(units.hourangle, units.deg))
search_r = 10 * units.arcsec
#
des_srvy = survey_utils.load_survey_by_name('DES', coord, search_r)
des_tbl = des_srvy.get_catalog(print_query=True)

Cutout

Here is how to retrieve a cut-out image:

cutout, cutout_hdr = des_srvy.get_cutout(search_r, band='r')

The header may be used to generate a WCS object and overlay coordinates, etc.

Available Surveys

Optical/IR Imaging

DES

The Dark Energy Survey (DES) is an imaging survey with the Dark Energy Camera on the CTIO telescope in Chile. The current public dataset is Data Release 1 (DR1). The software will slurp catalogs and images from DES-DR1.

DECaL

The DECaL survey imaged the majority of the Northern, extragalactic sky in the g,r, and z bands for the DESI survey.

Euclid

The ESA Euclid mission provides deep imaging of the Universe to study dark energy and dark matter through weak gravitational lensing and galaxy clustering. The Q1 (March 2025) public data release includes VIS-band and NISP near-infrared (J, H, Y) photometry, morphological parameters, and optional spectroscopy (NISP red). Coverage includes three deep fields (EDF North, EDF Fornax, EDF South). Data is queried from the mer_catalogue table providing multi-band photometry and source morphology.

Pan-STARRS

The Pan-STARRS survey covers the entire sky north of -30 deg in grizy bands. Catalogs and images are available.

SDSS

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) provides imaging and spectroscopy over a large area of the Northern sky.

WISE

The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) provides all-sky mid-infrared imaging in four bands (W1, W2, W3, W4).

2MASS

The Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) provides all-sky near-infrared imaging in J, H, and Ks bands.

GALEX

The Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) provides UV imaging in NUV and FUV bands.

VISTA

The VISTA survey provides near-infrared imaging in the Southern sky.

DELVE

The DECam Local Volume Exploration Survey (DELVE) provides deep optical imaging in the Southern sky.

NSC

The NOIRLab Source Catalog (NSC) provides a combined catalog from DECam and Mosaic3 imaging.

HSC

The Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) survey provides deep optical imaging from the Subaru telescope.

NEDLVS

The NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database Local Volume Sample.

DESI

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) survey catalog.

Spectroscopic

Cluster Search

Tools for searching galaxy clusters along FRB sightlines.

Radio

HEASARC and SkyView

Any of the catalogs maintained by HEASARC and images maintained by SkyView are in principle available. These are the ones that have been integrated thus far:

NVSS

The NVSS survey imaged the entire Northern sky north of -40 deg with the VLA. Catalogs and cutouts are available.

FIRST

The FIRST survey imaged the Northern sky at 1.4 GHz with the VLA. Catalogs and cutouts are available.

WENSS

The WENSS survey imaged the sky north of +30 deg at 325 MHz with the WSRT. Catalogs and cutouts are available.

Other Catalogs

PSRCAT

One can also access the pulsar catalog known as PSRCAT which is regularly slurped into the FRB GitHub organization.

TNS

Tools for querying the Transient Name Server (TNS) for FRB entries.