astrodbtoolkit / astrodbtoolkit/astrodb-template-db
Shipped PhotometryFilters.json has Paranal/VISTA bands with no matching Paranal row in Telescopes.json/Instruments.json
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Description
**Where:** `data/reference/PhotometryFilters.json` already contains `Paranal/VISTA.Y`, `Paranal/VISTA.J`, `Paranal/VISTA.H`, `Paranal/VISTA.Ks` (and other pre-populated bands like `PAN-STARRS/PS1.y`, `UKIRT/WFCAM.*`, `UKIRT/UKIDSS.*`, `UKIRT/UFTI.*`), but `data/reference/Telescopes.json` has no `Paranal` row at all (only `VLT-UT1..4` for that facility) and `Instruments.json` has no matching `Paranal` instrument row either.
**What happened:** A downstream skill's pattern of skipping `ingest_photometry_filter` when a band already exists in `PhotometryFilters` (since `ingest_photometry_filter` raises "already exists") meant the Telescopes/Instruments setup that `ingest_photometry_filter` would normally do as a side effect never ran for these pre-shipped bands. `ingest_photometry(..., telescope="Paranal", ...)` then failed for every VHS/VIKING/VVV/VIRAC2 magnitude with `Telescope Paranal not found in Telescopes table.` — 299 rows skipped on the first dry run of a real ingest.
**Suggested change:** Add a `Paranal` row to `data/reference/Telescopes.json` and a matching `VISTA` instrument row to `data/reference/Instruments.json`, and audit for other pre-populated `PhotometryFilters` bands with the same gap (any telescope/instrument referenced by a shipped filter row should have a matching row in both tables).
**Cross-filed:** Also filed against the [astrodb-bot](https://github.com/astrodbtoolkit/astrodb-bot) skills repo as [astrodbtoolkit/astrodb-bot#102](https://github.com/astrodbtoolkit/astrodb-bot/issues/102), which documents the same gotcha from the skill-user workaround side; this issue is for the actual template-data fix.
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_Reported from a gotchas.md log filed by a skill user (2026-08-28)._
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Research direction
Start with data/reference/PhotometryFilters.json, then compare every telescope and instrument referenced there with data/reference/Telescopes.json and data/reference/Instruments.json. Add the missing Paranal and VISTA rows and audit the other shipped filter references; done means each referenced telescope and instrument has a matching row and the reported Paranal ingestion no longer fails.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- python
- Domain
- database
- Issue type
- Bug
- Difficulty
- 3/5
- Estimated time
- 1-2 days
- Activity status
- Active
- Clarity
- Clearly specified
- Newbie friendliness
- 76/100