astropy / astropy/astroquery

DOC: MAST - Limit number of products?

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mast question
Dominant language
Python
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Description

I've found that `Observations.get_product_list` takes a long time and returns huge lists for single observations (~300,000 entries that each have many columns). The documentation presently suggests that one should get that product list then filter it after the fact.

Is there any way to do the filtering before transferring the full metadata?

(this is related to several of the other recent issues about file sizes from MAST, especially https://github.com/astropy/astroquery/issues/2496, but I'm looking for a different workaround)

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

Start with the Observations.get_product_list entry point and read the current MAST documentation describing how product lists are retrieved and filtered. Review the discussion and the linked issue about MAST file sizes to determine whether pre-transfer filtering is supported. Done means the documented workflow accurately explains how to avoid transferring the full metadata, or clearly records that limitation.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
python
Domain
api, documentation
Issue type
Documentation
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
28/100

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