Currently the primary access to the PanSTARRS catalog is through database queries using the MAST CasJobs interface, and the primary access to the PS1 images is through the PS1 Image Cutout Service. There is also a simple web form to search the catalog for objects near a sky position and a VO-compatible cone search interface for simple positional searches. A VO TAP service also provides direct SQL query access to the database. Both catalog and image interfaces can be used from scripts. The DR2 search API is fully functional and can be used to search various tables with constraints from any of the table columns. The PS1 images are also accessible via the MAST Portal. Python notebooks are provided with examples of access via various interfaces. |
The starting point for the PS1 data archive is at Pan-STARRS1 data archive home page.
The PanSTARRS catalog is a large database of the objects and measurements of their properties including astrometry, photometry, and morphology. It includes copious metadata including links to the images that were used for the various object measurements. The total database size for the DR2 release is nearly 150 TB.
A simple web form searches the object catalog for objects near a search position.
Features of the https://catalogs.mast.stsci.edu/ web form:
The search form has an associated application program interface (API) that can be used for programmatic (scripted) queries to the catalog. The API includes access to all the functionality of the interface, including constraints, selection of columns, etc. It can return the data in various formats including CSV, JSON, VOTables. It also has a metadata query to get a list of the available columns for a particular table. The API can be used for larger queries than the web interface, which is limited to returning 50,000 rows of data.
It is simple to use the API either from a language such as Python or with other command-line tools such as curl.
See our Python Jupyter notebook for the MAST API for simple examples of how to access the PS1 DR2 catalog via the API.
Here is a simple 1-line command using curl to get a csv table of source information from the mean catalog. This searches the PS1 DR2 mean catalog for sources within 0.5 degrees of the position of NGC 6822. It restricts the result to objects with nDetections >= 2 and increases the default limit on the number of sources returned to 500,000. This query executes in less than one minute:
curl 'https://catalogs.mast.stsci.edu/api/v0.1/panstarrs/dr2/mean.csv?ra=296.24059&dec=-14.80343&radius=0.5&pagesize=500000&nDetections.gte=2' > ngc6822.csv |
The MAST catalogs interface has a cross-match capability that can be easily used to match lists of source positions. See Easy cross-match with PS1 using a list of source positions for an example.
The PS1 images are available for the five PS1 filters for combined multi-epoch stacked images. and, with DR2, to the single epoch "warp" images.
Put one or more images or figures at the top of this column. Novices may simply "Insert" an "Image" here. Experts should create first go to the "Media Repository" page and "Create" a new "PS1 image information" page for the new image. The image information page provide a mechanism for capturing metadata and including alternate versions of the figure.
Include an infobox below the picture. Summarize key facts in the infobox. The infobox helps users quickly assess the content of the article.
Data Retrieval Quick Links | |
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Catalog and Database Access | |
Search form | https://catalogs.mast.stsci.edu |
VO Cone Search | https://gsss.stsci.edu/webservices/vo/CatalogSearch.aspx?CAT=PS1dr2OBJECTS&RA=<ra>&DEC=<dec-degrees>&SR=<radius-degrees> |
CasJobs | https://mastweb.stsci.edu/ps1casjobs/ |
VO TAP | https://vao.stsci.edu/PS1DR2/tapservice.aspx |
Image Access | |
Image cutout service | https://ps1images.stsci.edu/cgi-bin/ps1cutouts |
MAST portal | https://mast.stsci.edu |