Simbad2k

Simbad for the year 2000.

This is a simple web service that returns catalog information for a variety of objects. It makes use of astroquery as well as some other services.

Currently, supported lookups include:

• Major Planets
• Simbad
• MPC
• NED

To add a new source, just create a new class that implements get_result() that returns a dictionary and add the class to QUERY_CLASSES.

Querying

Simbad2k can query for both sidereal and non-sidereal targets, and, from non-sidereal targets, both comets and asteroids. The scheme query parameter is required for non-sidereal targets and has valid values of mpc_minor_planet and mpc_comet. Examples of three queries are as follows:

/m51?target_type=sidereal

/103P?target_type=non_sidereal&scheme=mpc_comet

/ceres?target_type=non_sidereal&scheme=mpc_minor_planet

Development

python3 -m pip install --user pipx
python3 -m pipx ensurepath
pipx install poetry

poetry install will create a virtual environment for you, which will have all requirements installed.

Run the tests with poetry run pytest.

Run the development server:

FLASK_DEBUG=1 FLASK_APP=simbad2k.simbad2k.py poetry run flask run