Customizing targets

Pre-defined custom targets

Users can predefine a custom list of targets by compiling a .csv file with the same format as one downloaded from the NASA Exoplanet Archive. The relevant header columns are these:

  • hostname: host name
  • pl_name: planet name
  • st_mass: stellar mass (solar masses)
  • st_rad: stellar radius (solar radii)
  • st_teff: stellar effective temperature (K)
  • st_logg: stellar surface gravity (log CGS units)
  • st_met: stellar metallicity
  • sy_kmag: stellar Ks magnitude
  • ra: right ascention (deg)
  • dec: declination (deg)
  • pl_bmasse or pl_masse: planet mass (Earth masses)
  • pl_msinie: planet mass * sin(inclination)
  • pl_rade: planet radius (Earth radii)
  • pl_orbsmax: orbital semi-major axis (AU)
  • pl_orbper: orbital period (d)
  • pl_tranmid: transit mid time (or conjunction) epoch (BJD)
  • pl_ratdor: planet-to-star radius ratio
  • pl_ratror: semi-major axis to stellar radius ratio
  • pl_trandur: transit duration (h)
  • pl_eqt: planet equilibrium temperature (K)

The recommendation is to download a csv target list from the NASA archive and work your way from there to create your custom targets.

Note

Note that not all values are strictly needed, e.g., pl_ratdor is redundant when both st_rad and pl_rade are defined.

To update the custom target list, run this command from the prompt:

tso --update_custom exoplanet_file.csv

To replace the custom target list, simply run tso --update_custom with a new input csv file. To add new custom targets to the current custom target list, run this command from the prompt:

tso --add_custom exoplanet_file.csv

This list of custom targets will be remain, and will be loaded any time the GUI is launched.

Note

Note that if a custom target has the same name as an existing target in the NASA exoplanet catalog, the custom values will override the ones from NASA. Otherwise, new custom targets will be appended to the existing ones.

You can find the current custom target list with this Python script:

from gen_tso.utils import ROOT
print(f'{ROOT}data/custom_targets.txt')
/home/user/env/.../gen_tso/data/custom_targets.txt

Temporary custom targets

Users can also run the GUI with a temporary custom target list that will be loaded only for the current session. For this, launch the application with the -t argument followed by a csv target list:

tso -t exoplanet_file.csv
Note

When a temporary custom target list is specified, the pre-defined custom list will not be loaded.

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