The Astropy Project: Building an Open-science Project and Status of the v2.0 Core Package

Authors

A. M. Price-Whelan, Princeton University
B. M. Sipõcz, Institute of Astronomy
H. M. Günther, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research
P. L. Lim, Space Telescope Science Institute
S. M. Crawford, South African Astronomical Observatory
S. Conseil, CNRS Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
D. L. Shupe, California Institute of Technology
M. W. Craig, Minnesota State University Moorhead
N. Dencheva, Space Telescope Science Institute
A. Ginsburg, National Radio Astronomy Observatory Socorro
J. T. Vanderplas, University of Washington
L. D. Bradley, Space Telescope Science Institute
D. Pérez-Suárez, University College London
M. De Val-Borro, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
T. L. Aldcroft, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
K. L. Cruz, Hunter College
T. P. Robitaille, Aperio Software
E. J. Tollerud, Space Telescope Science Institute
C. Ardelean, The University of Western Ontario
T. Babej, Masarykova Univerzita
Y. P. Bach, Seoul National University
M. Bachetti, Osservatorio Astronomico di Cagliari
A. V. Bakanov
S. P. Bamford, University of Nottingham
G. Barentsen, NASA Ames Research Center
P. Barmby, The University of Western OntarioFollow
A. Baumbach, Universität Heidelberg
K. L. Berry
F. Biscani, Max Planck Institute for Astronomy

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

9-1-2018

Journal

Astronomical Journal

Volume

156

Issue

3

URL with Digital Object Identifier

10.3847/1538-3881/aabc4f

Abstract

The Astropy Project supports and fosters the development of open-source and openly developed Python packages that provide commonly needed functionality to the astronomical community. A key element of the Astropy Project is the core package astropy, which serves as the foundation for more specialized projects and packages. In this article, we provide an overview of the organization of the Astropy project and summarize key features in the core package, as of the recent major release, version 2.0. We then describe the project infrastructure designed to facilitate and support development for a broader ecosystem of interoperable packages. We conclude with a future outlook of planned new features and directions for the broader Astropy Project.