# Defining Observing Constraints¶

## Introduction to Built-In Constraints¶

Frequently, we have a long list of targets that we want to observe, and we need to know which ones are observable given a set of constraints imposed on our observations by a wide range of limitations. For example, your telescope may only point over a limited range of altitudes, your targets are only useful in a range of airmasses, and they must be separated from the moon by some large angle. The constraints module is here to help!

Say we’re planning to observe from Subaru Observatory in Hawaii on August 1, 2015 from 06:00-12:00 UTC. First, let’s set up an Observer object:

from astroplan import Observer, FixedTarget
from astropy.time import Time
subaru = Observer.at_site("Subaru")
time_range = Time(["2015-08-01 06:00", "2015-08-01 12:00"])


We’re keeping a list of targets in a text file called targets.txt, which looks like this:

# name ra_degrees dec_degrees
Polaris 37.95456067 89.26410897
Vega 279.234734787 38.783688956
Albireo 292.68033548 27.959680072
Algol 47.042218553 40.955646675
Rigel 78.634467067 -8.201638365
Regulus 152.092962438 11.967208776


We’ll read in this list of targets using astropy.table, and create a list of FixedTarget objects out of them:

# Read in the table of targets
from astropy.table import Table

# Create astroplan.FixedTarget objects for each one in the table
from astropy.coordinates import SkyCoord
import astropy.units as u
targets = [FixedTarget(coord=SkyCoord(ra=ra*u.deg, dec=dec*u.deg), name=name)
for name, ra, dec in target_table]


We will build a bulleted list of our constraints first, then implement them in code below.

• Our observations with Subaru can only occur between altitudes of ~10-80 degrees, which we can define using the AltitudeConstraint class.
• We place an upper limit on the airmass of each target during observations using the AirmassConstraint class.
• Since we’re optical observers, we only want to observe targets at night, so we’ll also call the AtNightConstraint class. We’re not terribly worried about sky brightness for these bright stars, so we’ll define “night” times as those between civil twilights by using the class method twilight_civil:
from astroplan import (AltitudeConstraint, AirmassConstraint,
AtNightConstraint)
constraints = [AltitudeConstraint(10*u.deg, 80*u.deg),
AirmassConstraint(5), AtNightConstraint.twilight_civil()]


This list of constraints can now be applied to our target list to determine whether:

• the targets are observable given the constraints at any times in the time range, using is_observable,

• the targets are observable given the constraints at all times in the time range, using is_always_observable:

from astroplan import is_observable, is_always_observable
# Are targets *ever* observable in the time range?
ever_observable = is_observable(constraints, subaru, targets, time_range=time_range)

# Are targets *always* observable in the time range?
always_observable = is_always_observable(constraints, subaru, targets, time_range=time_range)


These two functions will return boolean arrays which tell you whether or not each target is observable given your constraints. Let’s print these results in tabular form:

>>> from astropy.table import Table
>>> import numpy as np
>>> observability_table = Table()
>>> observability_table['targets'] = [target.name for target in targets]
>>> observability_table['ever_observable'] = ever_observable
>>> observability_table['always_observable'] = always_observable
>>> print(observability_table)
<Table length=6>
targets ever_observable always_observable
str7        bool             bool
------- --------------- -----------------
Polaris            True              True
Vega            True              True
Albireo            True             False
Algol            True             False
Rigel           False             False
Regulus           False             False


Now we can see which targets are observable! You can also use the observability_table method to do the same calculations and store the results in a table, all in one step:

>>> from astroplan import observability_table
>>> table = observability_table(constraints, subaru, targets, time_range=time_range)
>>> print(table)
target name ever observable always observable fraction of time observable
----------- --------------- ----------------- ---------------------------
Polaris            True              True                         1.0
Vega            True              True                         1.0
Albireo            True             False              0.833333333333
Algol            True             False              0.166666666667
Rigel           False             False                         0.0
Regulus           False             False                         0.0


Let’s sanity-check these results using plot_sky to plot the positions of the targets throughout the time range:

We can see that Vega is in the sweet spot in altitude and azimuth for this time range and is always observable. Albireo is not always observable given these criteria because it rises above 80 degrees altitude. Polaris hardly moves and is therefore always observable, and Algol starts out observable but sets below the lower altitude limit, and then the airmass limit. Rigel and Regulus never rise above those limits within the time range.

## User-Defined Constraints¶

There are many possible constraints that you could find useful which have not been implemented (yet) in astroplan. This example will walk you through creating your own constraint which will be compatible with the tools in the constraints module.

We will begin by defining an observer at Subaru and reading the text file of stellar coordinates defined in the example above:

from astroplan import Observer, FixedTarget
from astropy.time import Time
subaru = Observer.at_site("Subaru")
time_range = Time(["2015-08-01 06:00", "2015-08-01 12:00"])

# Read in the table of targets
from astropy.io import ascii

# Create astroplan.FixedTarget objects for each one in the table
from astropy.coordinates import SkyCoord
import astropy.units as u
targets = [FixedTarget(coord=SkyCoord(ra=ra*u.deg, dec=dec*u.deg), name=name)
for name, ra, dec in target_table]


In the above example, you may have noticed that constraints are assembled by making a list of calls to the initializers for classes like AltitudeConstraint and AirmassConstraint. Each of those constraint classes is subclassed from the abstract Constraint class, and the custom constraint that we’re going to write must be as well.

In this example, let’s design our constraint to ensure that all targets must be within some angular separation from Vega – we’ll call it VegaSeparationConstraint. Two methods, __init__ and compute_constraint must be written for our constraint to work:

• The __init__ method will accept the minimum and maximum acceptable separations a target could have from Vega.
• We’ll also define a method compute_constraints which takes three arguments: an array of times to test, an Observer object, and one or a list of FixedTarget objects. compute_constraints will return a matrix of booleans that describe whether or not each target meets the constraints. The super class Constraint has a __call__ method which will run your custom class’s compute_constraints method when you check if a target is observable using is_observable or is_always_observable.

Here’s our VegaSeparationConstraint implementation:

from astroplan import Constraint, is_observable
from astropy.coordinates import Angle

class VegaSeparationConstraint(Constraint):
"""
Constraint the separation from Vega
"""
def __init__(self, min=None, max=None):
"""
min : ~astropy.units.Quantity or None (optional)
Minimum acceptable separation between Vega and target. None
indicates no limit.
max : ~astropy.units.Quantity or None (optional)
Minimum acceptable separation between Vega and target. None
indicates no limit.
"""
self.min = min
self.max = max

def compute_constraint(self, times, observer, targets):

# Vega's coordinate must be non-scalar for the dimensions
# to work out properly when combined with other constraints which
# test multiple times
vega = SkyCoord(ra=[279.23473479]*u.deg, dec=[38.78368896]*u.deg)

# Calculate separation between target and vega
vega_separation = Angle([vega.separation(target.coord)
for target in targets])

# If a maximum is specified but no minimum
if self.min is None and self.max is not None:

# If a minimum is specified but no maximum
elif self.max is None and self.min is not None:

# If both a minimum and a maximum are specified
elif self.min is not None and self.max is not None:
mask = ((self.min < vega_separation) & (vega_separation < self.max))

# Otherwise, raise an error
else:
raise ValueError("No max and/or min specified in "
"VegaSeparationConstraint.")

# Return an array that is True where the target is observable and
# False where it is not

>>> constraints = [VegaSeparationConstraint(min=5*u.deg, max=30*u.deg)]