IRSA review based on spectral retrieval

[keflavich]

I'm doing some experimenting with the IRSA module today.
https://gist.github.com/keflavich/33140330d1e1695d0d24ffdfdf9934fc

A question came up about the API:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
InvalidQueryError                         Traceback (most recent call last)
Cell In[4], line 1
----> 1 Irsa.query_region(SkyCoord.from_name('Sgr B2'))

File [/orange/adamginsburg/miniconda3/envs/python312/lib/python3.12/site-packages/astropy/utils/decorators.py:603](http://localhost:23456/lab/workspaces/auto-n/tree/jwst/brick/notebooks/miniconda3/envs/python312/lib/python3.12/site-packages/astropy/utils/decorators.py#line=602), in deprecated_renamed_argument.<locals>.decorator.<locals>.wrapper(*args, **kwargs)
    600             msg += f"\n        Use {alternative} instead."
    601         warnings.warn(msg, warning_type, stacklevel=2)
--> 603 return function(*args, **kwargs)

File [/red/adamginsburg/repos/astroquery/astroquery/ipac/irsa/core.py:176](http://localhost:23456/red/adamginsburg/repos/astroquery/astroquery/ipac/irsa/core.py#line=175), in IrsaClass.query_region(self, coordinates, catalog, spatial, radius, width, polygon, get_query_payload, columns, verbose, cache)
    137 """
    138 Queries the IRSA TAP server around a coordinate and returns a `~astropy.table.Table` object.
    139 
   (...)
    173 table : A `~astropy.table.Table` object.
    174 """
    175 if catalog is None:
--> 176     raise InvalidQueryError("Catalog name is required!")
    178 adql = f'SELECT {columns} FROM {catalog}'
    180 if spatial == 'All-Sky':

InvalidQueryError: Catalog name is required!

Why is catalog an optional keyword argument when it is required? Change was made here: 6ab0362

I think the * should be after the catalog keyword. I'll propose that change.

query_sia's documentation has problems inherited from pyvo:

Parameters:
possingle or list of tuples
angle units (default: deg) the positional region(s) to be searched for data. Each region can be expressed as a tuple representing a CIRCLE, RANGE or POLYGON as follows: (ra, dec, radius) - for CIRCLE. (angle units - defaults to) (long1, long2, lat1, lat2) - for RANGE (angle units required) (ra, dec, ra, dec, ra, dec … ) ra/dec points for POLYGON all in angle units

Note that "defaults to" isn't followed by anything. By experimentation it appears to be degrees. It is not clear how to specify units for those with 'angle units required'. This is an upstream issue: astropy/pyvo#593

Otherwise, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that SIA works just fine for retrieving spectra

[keflavich]

OK, the answer to the first comment is sort of weird: catalog is required, but the first argument, coordinate, technically is not because of the spatial='All-Sky' possibility. So catalog=None is necessary. But still, the order should change, imo. But this is such a tiny change.... it's hardly worth it.

[keflavich]

Also, query_sia does not accept SkyCoord or Region input, afaict. It should. Again, that's more a pyvo issue.

[bsipocz]

Ahh, interesting, that should work. Can you dump the examples you tried into a gist, so we can eventually add all of those to the test suite either here and/or at pyvo.

[bsipocz]

(skycoord to SIA2 was solved before for scalar cases, but not for vectors: astropy/pyvo#409 and astropy/pyvo#459; and I use skycoords in here: https://caltech-ipac.github.io/irsa-tutorials/tutorials/cloud_access/cloud-access-intro.html#find-an-image-using-pyvo-and-a-coordinate-search)

[keflavich]

the gist is linked at the top.

But thanks, indeed (crd, rad) works, e.g.:

crd = SkyCoord.from_name('Sgr B2')
sgrb2_q = Irsa.query_sia(pos=(crd, 6*u.arcmin,) )

(...don't run that, 6 arcmin is way too much for this target)

[bsipocz]

the gist is linked at the top.

🤦‍♀️ sorry, I didn't notice..

[bsipocz]

For the SkyCoord search, is https://astroquery.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ipac/irsa/irsa.html#simple-image-access-queries enough, or we need more documentation?

[keflavich]

the narrative docs are good, but the docstring needs to show this too. that's the pyvo issue, though, right?