lightkurve.search_lightcurve#

lightkurve.search_lightcurve(target, radius=None, exptime=None, cadence=None, mission=('Kepler', 'K2', 'TESS'), author=None, quarter=None, month=None, campaign=None, sector=None, limit=None)[source]#

Search the MAST data archive for light curves.

This function fetches a data table that lists the Light Curve Files that fall within a region of sky centered around the position of target and within a cone of a given radius. If no value is provided for radius, only a single target will be returned.

Parameters

targetstr, int, or astropy.coordinates.SkyCoord object

Target around which to search. Valid inputs include:

The name of the object as a string, e.g. “Kepler-10”.

The KIC or EPIC identifier as an integer, e.g. 11904151.

A coordinate string in decimal format, e.g. “285.67942179 +50.24130576”.

A coordinate string in sexagesimal format, e.g. “19:02:43.1 +50:14:28.7”.

An astropy.coordinates.SkyCoord object.

radiusfloat or astropy.units.Quantity object

Conesearch radius. If a float is given it will be assumed to be in units of arcseconds. If None then we default to 0.0001 arcsec.

exptime‘long’, ‘short’, ‘fast’, or float

‘long’ selects 10-min and 30-min cadence products; ‘short’ selects 1-min and 2-min products; ‘fast’ selects 20-sec products. Alternatively, you can pass the exact exposure time in seconds as an int or a float, e.g., exptime=600 selects 10-minute cadence. By default, all cadence modes are returned.

cadence‘long’, ‘short’, ‘fast’, or float

Synonym for exptime. This keyword will likely be deprecated in the future.

missionstr, tuple of str

‘Kepler’, ‘K2’, or ‘TESS’. By default, all will be returned.

authorstr, tuple of str, or “any”

Author of the data product (provenance_name in the MAST API). Official Kepler, K2, and TESS pipeline products have author names ‘Kepler’, ‘K2’, and ‘SPOC’. Community-provided products that are supported include ‘K2SFF’, ‘EVEREST’. By default, all light curves are returned regardless of the author.

quarter, campaign, sectorint, list of ints

Kepler Quarter, K2 Campaign, or TESS Sector number. By default all quarters/campaigns/sectors will be returned.

month1, 2, 3, 4 or list of int

For Kepler’s prime mission, there are three short-cadence TargetPixelFiles for each quarter, each covering one month. Hence, if exptime='short' you can specify month=1, 2, 3, or 4. By default all months will be returned.

limitint

Maximum number of products to return.

Returns

resultSearchResult object: Object detailing the data products found.

Examples

This example demonstrates how to use the search_lightcurve() function to query and download data. Before instantiating a LightCurve object or downloading any science products, we can identify potential desired targets with search_lightcurve:

>>> from lightkurve import search_lightcurve  
>>> search_result = search_lightcurve("Kepler-10")  
>>> print(search_result)  

The above code will query mast for lightcurve files available for the known planet system Kepler-10, and display a table containing the available data products. Because Kepler-10 was observed in multiple quarters and sectors by both Kepler and TESS, the search will return many dozen results. If we want to narrow down the search to only return Kepler light curves in long cadence, we can use:

>>> search_result = search_lightcurve("Kepler-10", author="Kepler", exptime=1800)   
>>> print(search_result)  

That is better, we now see 15 light curves corresponding to 15 Kepler quarters. If we want to download a LightCurveCollection object containing all 15 observations, use:

>>> search_result.download_all()  

or we can specify the downloaded products by selecting a specific row using rectangular brackets, for example:

>>> lc = search_result[2].download()  

The above line of code will only search and download Quarter 2 data and create a LightCurve object called lc.

We can also pass a radius into search_lightcurve to perform a cone search:

>>> search_lightcurve('Kepler-10', radius=100, quarter=4, exptime=1800)  

This will display a table containing all targets within 100 arcseconds of Kepler-10 and in Quarter 4. We can then download a LightCurveFile containing all these light curves using:

>>> search_lightcurve('Kepler-10', radius=100, quarter=4, exptime=1800).download_all()  

lightkurve.search_targetpixelfile

lightkurve.search_tesscut