astropy / astropy/astroquery

Slow Simbad.query_objects & IRSA.query_region searches

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#3,025 6 comments 0 reactions 1 assignee Claimed by @bsipocz View on GitHub
ipac.irsa question
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Description

Hi!
I have what might be considered an unusual use case for astroquery--I cross match (~20,000) objects with different catalogs using the Simbad, IRSA, and Xmatch queries for an instrument archive. I wrote code that completed all of this cross-matching for me several years ago and have been using it to update the archive I manage since then. I recently updated my environment moving astroquery to the newest 4.7 release, but my prior code doesn't work like it used to in astroquery 4.3 and I was wondering if something changed.

In particular:
- `Simbad.query_objects` has become unusable for my list of objects (~17,000) for name searching. I primarily use this function to reverse search 2MASS names returned from another cross match method to verify the integrity of the cross match. Even after increasing the timeout limit to over 24 hours, the function still failed to search all of the objects in that time. In astroquery 4.3 I did not have this issue, often a similar amount of objects were searched in 1-2 hours. I am mostly confused because if I loop through each object one at a time and search the names using `Simbad.query_object` the results are incredibly fast (done in under an hour).
- `IRSA.query_region` using 2MASS names (I query a 5 arcsecond cone) has also become incredibly slow per object and appears to become even slower for objects later in the list, which again, I didn't struggle with in astroquery 4.3.
- I am a little confused by some of the search behavior from `IRSA.query_region` when using names to search for objects in the 2MASS catalog. Some of the names I put into the function return no results when searched with a radius of 5 arcsec, but show up in results if I widen the search radius to 10 arcsec. I thought by using the 2MASS names it would just return a result if the name appeared in the 2MASS catalog but it still seems like the search is still coordinate based? Is there a way to search the 2MASS catalog directly using the 2MASS name and not the coordinates?

I do feel like the Xmatch function has sped up significantly since astroquery 4.3 which I love! I was just wondering if there were any changes made there that could have affected the Simbad and IRSA search functions.

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