Downloading data#

Searching the Kepler & TESS archive#

Lightkurve provides three functions which make it easy to search and download TESS and Kepler data products from the public data archive at MAST.

search_targetpixelfile(target[, radius, ...])

Search the MAST data archive for target pixel files.

search_lightcurve(target[, radius, exptime, ...])

Search the MAST data archive for light curves.

search_tesscut(target[, sector])

Search the MAST TESSCut service for a region of sky that is available as a TESS Full Frame Image cutout.

Downloading data products#

The search functions listed above return a SearchResult object, which provides an easy way to select and download data.

`SearchResult`([table])	Container for the results returned by the search functions.
`SearchResult.download`([quality_bitmask, ...])	Download and open the first data product in the search result.
`SearchResult.download_all`([quality_bitmask, ...])	Download and open all data products in the search result.

Filtering search results#

The SearchResult object provides convenient access to the essential metadata, which enables the search results to be filtered. For example, a search result can be filtered by exposure time using result = result[result.exptime.value < 100].

`SearchResult.mission`	Kepler quarter or TESS sector names for each data product found.
`SearchResult.year`	Year the observation was made.
`SearchResult.author`	Pipeline name for each data product found.
`SearchResult.target_name`	Target name for each data product found.
`SearchResult.exptime`	Exposure time for each data product found.
`SearchResult.distance`	Distance from the search position for each data product found.
`SearchResult.ra`	Right Ascension coordinate for each data product found.
`SearchResult.dec`	Declination coordinate for each data product found.
`SearchResult.table`	`Table` containing the full search results returned by the MAST API.

Customizing search results display#

Users can optionally include a list of extra columns in the default display of SearchResult objects.

SearchResult.display_extra_columns

A list of extra columns to be included in the default display of the search result.

Data products collection#

SearchResult.download_all returns a LightCurveCollection or a TargetPixelFileCollection object. They contain the data products, along with some convenience functions.

A collection can also be further filtered using standard Python list syntax, and a subset of numpy.ndarray syntax. For example, a collection can be filtered by TESS sectors using lcc[(lcc.sector >= 13) & (lcc.sector <= 19)].

`LightCurveCollection`(lightcurves)	Class to hold a collection of LightCurve objects.
`LightCurveCollection.stitch`([corrector_func])	Stitch all light curves in the collection into a single `LightCurve`.
`LightCurveCollection.plot`([ax, offset])	Plots all light curves in the collection on a single plot.
`LightCurveCollection.append`(obj)	Appends a new object to the collection.
`LightCurveCollection.campaign`	(K2-specific) the campaigns of the lightcurves / target pixel files.
`LightCurveCollection.quarter`	(Kepler-specific) the quarters of the lightcurves / target pixel files.
`LightCurveCollection.sector`	(TESS-specific) the quarters of the lightcurves / target pixel files.
`TargetPixelFileCollection`(tpfs)	Class to hold a collection of `TargetPixelFile` objects.
`TargetPixelFileCollection.plot`([ax])	Individually plots all TargetPixelFile objects in a single matplotlib axes object.
`TargetPixelFileCollection.append`(obj)	Appends a new object to the collection.
`TargetPixelFileCollection.campaign`	(K2-specific) the campaigns of the lightcurves / target pixel files.
`TargetPixelFileCollection.quarter`	(Kepler-specific) the quarters of the lightcurves / target pixel files.
`TargetPixelFileCollection.sector`	(TESS-specific) the quarters of the lightcurves / target pixel files.

API

lightkurve.search_targetpixelfile