Astrolab documentation

This site contains the documentation for the astrolab python package used in the introductory astronomy laboratory Observing the Cosmos (PHY/AST-1080) at Ashoka University. This laboratory includes multiple experiments that aim to introduce first-year undergraduates to the basic ideas of observational astronomy. As such, many of these experiments rely heavily on programming, which can often be a problem since students often take this course without any prior knowledge of programming. As a compromise, this python package was developed over the course of the year 2022-2023, both during and immediately after the first iteration of the laboratory. The idea of this package is to abstract out many of the complicated (and ultimately unimportant) details that deal with how certain actions can be implemented programmatically, so that students can instead focus on exactly how their data should be processed, without unnecessary distractions.

Check out the Introduction section for further information.

Note

This documentation is under active development. If you notice any parts of it that are incorrect or outdated, please raise an issue on the GitHub page.

Contents

Getting Started

The Package

Tutorials