astropy / astropy/astroquery

Unexpected behavior at certain radius values for astroquery.imcce.Skybot.cone_search

Open
#3,119 3 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
imcce
Dominant language
Python
Stars
791
Forks
451
Avg merge
1d 3h
Merged PRs (30d)
4

Description

When I use this set of coordinates at this time I get an empty result for one radius:
```
from astroquery.imcce import Skybot
from astropy.time import Time
from astropy.coordinates import SkyCoord
import astropy.units as u
epoch = Time('55362.69789455', format='mjd')
field = SkyCoord(180.16294575*u.deg, 0.04415185*u.deg)
Skybot.cone_search(field, 19.789250330604407*u.arcmin, epoch, get_raw_response=True, find_asteroids=True)
```
result: # Flag: -1\n# Ticket: 181292695259995135\nSkyBoT comet conesearch -> MySQL server (asterws3.imcce.fr): \n

But a non-empty result for the following marginally smaller radius:

`Skybot.cone_search(field, 19.78925033060440*u.arcmin, epoch, get_raw_response=True, find_asteroids=True)`

result: # Flag: 1\n# Ticket: 181292699247551035\n# Num | Name | RA(h) | DE(deg) | Class | Mv | Err(arcsec) | d(arcsec) | dRA(arcsec/h) | dDEC(arcsec/h) | Dg(ua) | Dh(ua) | Phase(deg) | SunElong(deg) | x(au) | y(au) | z(au) | vx(au/d) | vy(au/d) | vz(au/d) | Ref. Epoch(JD) \n 397879 | 2008 UC100 | 12 00 31.7111 | +00 03 45.841 | MB>Inner | 23.4 | 2.017 | 129.546 | 22.1342 | -9.885 | 2.40648073312 | 2.70744509418 | 21.95 | 95.76 | -2.518461043 | -0.907950204 | -0.388408409 | 0.003630443 | -0.007884952 | -0.003471052 | 2455360 \n ... etc.

There seems to be no correlation with number of decimal places or with the size of the radius value in determining what breaks the code. This may be an issue with SkyBot itself, I am not sure.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

Start with the astroquery.imcce.Skybot.cone_search entry point and reproduce the supplied request using the two nearly identical radii and get_raw_response=True. Compare the returned SkyBoT responses to determine whether the discrepancy originates in the client or the external service; done means the behavior is explained and, if client-side, covered by a regression test.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
python
Domain
api
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
35/100

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.