LIFE Target Database Access

Introduction

To access the data from the LIFE database you can either use the graphical user interface TOPCAT https://www.star.bris.ac.uk/~mbt/topcat/ or do it in a python environment.

TOPCAT

Install TOPCAT. Lunch TOPCAT. Click the “VO” button on the top header. Click on “Table Access Protocol (TAP) Query”. In the newly opened window choose from the dropdown menue of “All TAP services” the “GAVO DC TAP” one.

Python

We’ll use the virtual observatory tool PyVO to query the database.

import pyvo as vo

Feel free to adapt the adql_query variable to your liking. If you are unsure of what else you could query have a look at the provided examples http://dc.zah.uni-heidelberg.de/life/q/ex/examples

adql_query = """
        SELECT TOP 10 object_id, main_id FROM life_td.object
        WHERE type='st'"""

link = "http://dc.zah.uni-heidelberg.de/tap"
# alternative link if above does not work
# link = "http://dc.g-vo.org/tap"

service = vo.dal.TAPService(link)

result = service.run_async(adql_query.format(**locals()), maxrec=160000)

catalog = result.to_table()

print(catalog)

object_id   main_id
--------- -----------
        1   *   1 Hya
        2 *   1 Hya B
        3 *   1 Hya C
        4   *   3 Cyg
        6   *   5 Pup
        7   *   5 Ser
        8 *   5 Ser B
        9   *   6 And
       10   *   6 Cet
       11   *   7 And