API and Command Line Access

The catalogs and astronomical archives of the HEASARC are accessible through different Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and Command Line Interfaces (CLI)

• Virtual Observatory API

  HEASARC data is accessible through the Virtual Observatory (VO) protocols, which includes:

  • Cone search
  • Simple Image Access (SIA)
  • Simple Spectral Access (SSA)
  • Table Access Protocol (TAP)

  Details of VO APIs ...

• Custom APIs

  The XAMIN catalog and archive interface allows users to query the HEASARC catalogs, plot the results and download the the associated data products. It includes both a web API and a Command Line interface.

  • The command line interface runs like
    
    runquery key1=value1 key2=value2
  • The corresponding web interface is:
    
    https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/xamin/query?key1=value1&key2=value2

  Details of Custom APIs ...

• Astroquery

  The HEASARC also supports access to the archive products throught the astroquery.heasarc module (version >= 0.4.8). Examples include:

  from astroquery.heasarc import Heasarc catalogs = Heasarc.list_catalogs(master=True) from astropy.coordinates import SkyCoord position = SkyCoord.from_name('ngc 3783') table = Heasarc.query_region(position, catalog='numaster') links = Heasarc.locate_data(table) Heasarc.download_data(links)

  Details of Astroquery module ...

Other resources

• Command line tools for data downloads - A download script can be useful, and we also have tips on using wget and curl.