Welcome to the VLITE Database Pipeline Documentation

The VLITE Database Pipeline, or vdp, is a collection of Python scripts to automate the measurement and database archiving of radio-emitting astronomical point sources detected in VLITE images.

vdp uses the Python Blob Detector and Source Finder (PyBDSF; Mohan & Rafferty 2015) for source finding and PostgreSQL for database storage. The sky indexing scheme Q3C (Koposov, S., & Bartunov, O. 2006) implemented for PostgreSQL is utilized to enable high performance queries and positional matching across tables as the VLITE catalog grows.

This documentation provides a high level overview of how to run vdp, as well as detailed descriptions of each stage in the pipeline.

For more information about VLITE in general, see here.

Quick Start

Execution of the pipeline is controlled through a YAML configuration file. Here’s an example file to get you started: example_config.yaml

The pipeline is started from the command line with the configuration file:

$ python vdp.py example_config.yaml

Check out the VDPGuide IPython notebook for a step-by-step walkthrough of the pipeline stages and analysis examples.

Getting Started with the VLITE Database Pipeline

• Basic Usage
  • Running the Code
    • Command Line Arguments
    • Batch Processing
    • Expected Execution Times
    • Stopping the Pipeline
    • Data Products
  • Description of Configuration File Parameters
• Pipeline Stages
  • Stage 1: Reading the Image
    • Image Quality Assurance
  • Stage 2: Source Finding
    • Source Count Quality Assurance
  • Stage 3: Source Association
  • Stage 4: Catalog Matching
• Database Contents & Structure
  • Tables
    • assoc_source
    • catalog_match
    • corrected_flux
    • detected_island
    • detected_source
    • error
    • image
    • run_config
    • vlite_unique
  • The “radcat” Schema
    • radcat.catalogs
    • radcat.[catalog_name]
• Usage Examples
• PostgreSQL Primer
  • Managing the Database Server
    • Starting and Stopping the Server
  • Connecting to a Database
  • Copying Data to a File
  • Query Examples
    • Basic SQL
    • Queries for the VLITE Database
  • Database Admin Tasks
    • Changing the Data Directory
    • Managing Users
• Maintainer Instructions
  • Adding a New Radio Catalog
  • Updating the Image & Source Count Quality Checks
  • Updating the Primary Beam Correction
  • Changing the Resolution Class Ranges
  • Database Maintenance

Modules

• Modules
  • vdp
  • Database & Classes
  • Source Finding
  • Source Cross-Matching
  • Radio Sky Surveys & Catalogs
  • Utility

Indices and Tables

• Index
• Module Index
• Search Page