Astrohack Installation

We provide installation instructions for two types of installations, one inside an Anaconda environment the other by using a provided installation script that will create a python virtual environment and install astrohack in that environment as well as a few convenience functions to simplify the usage of astrohack.

Installation in an Anaconda environment is the recommended way for most users. If that is not possible, such as is the case for some at NRAO, the installation script is the suggested way to go.

Installation under Anaconda

When installing Astrohack in an Anaconda environment it is recommended to start with a fresh environment, Preferabilly under python3.12, as it is the most recent, and also fastest, version of python supported by astrohack. A fresh environment is recommended as to avoid conflicting dependencies with other packages. To create such an environment:

$ conda create --name astrohack python=3.12 --no-default-packages
$ conda activate astrohack

On macos it is required to pre-install python-casacore, before installing astrohack:

$ conda install -c conda-forge python-casacore

Astrohack is not yet available for download directly from conda-forge, therefore we suggest to install astrohack by using pip:

$ pip install astrohack

It is also possible to install astrohack from source by downloading the source code directly from github. With the zip extracted you can then navigate to the root directory and make a local pip installation:

$ cd <Astrohack_root_dir>
$ pip install -e .

Installation in NRAO machines using the provided installation script

For convenience we have created an installation script for astrohack that installs it in a python virtual environment (venv). This venv is expected to be created using python 3.11 and is usually installed at ~/.local/python/venvs. The last thing that the installation script does is to create convenience functions that are highly recommended as they simplify the use of the venv.

WARNING: VENVS ARE NOT PORTABLE, these instructions must be executed on the machine the user intends to use for astrohack reduction.

Downloading and installing

The installation script can be downloaded here. To run the installation script it is necessary to make it executable, and then it can be executed:

$ chmod u+x astrohack_install.sh
$ ./astrohack_install.sh

There will be 3 questions during execution:

  1. Installation location, for default just press <enter>.

  2. Python3.11 executable for venv creation, for default just press <enter>.

  3. The name for the venv, for default just press <enter>.

After this questions the script will first create the venv, followed by updating pip and then it installs astrohack. When all of this is done (should take a few minutes to download and install all astrohack dependencies), the script will then ask if the user wants to install the convenience functions. Unless the user is reinstalling with the same venv name and location the user should always install the convenience functions.

When the installation is done the user can check that it worked by invoking the environment:

$ activate_astrohack

If the venv is correctly installed the prompt will change by the addition of the venv name. For a simple test, the user can open an Ipython session inside the venv and try to import astrohack:

from astrohack import locit

If the installation happened without any problems the user will see no error messages. To exit the venv the user should use the deactivate command:

$ deactivate

After installing the user can then go on to Obtaining Antenna Position corrections.

Updating astrohack inside the VENV

Every now and then a new release of astrohack will come along with new functionalities and/or bug fixes. To update astrohack it is necessary to first get into the venv and then we can call pip to update astrohack:

$ activate_astrohack
$ pip install astrohack --upgrade

If the user is not going to use astrohack straight away it is recommended to deactivate the venv after doing the update:

$ deactivate

Installation or execution problems

If the user encounters any issues during installation and/or execution of astrohack they should leave an issue here on github or write an e-mail to Victor de Souza.