User Documentation#

As ipyaladin brings the Aladin Lite software into python notebooks, some commands are similar to the original software. When this is the case, this documentation might redirect towards Aladin Lite’s own documentation.

Initialization options for the widget#

The widget is represented by a python class, ipyaladin.widget.Aladin. This class has arguments that allow to chose which buttons or functionalities will be available in the widget. These cannot be edited later.

Here is a list of options that can be given to ipyaladin:

Initialization options#
Argument	Default Value	Description
background_color	rgb(60, 60, 60)	The color behind the surveys in RGB format.
full_screen	False	Whether to start in full-screen mode.
grid_color	rgb(178, 50, 178)	Color of the grid. Can be specified as a named color (see html named colors), as rgb (ex: ‘rgb(178, 50, 178)’), or as a hex color (ex: ‘#86D6AE’).
grid_opacity	0.5	Opacity of the grid and labels. It is comprised between 0 and 1.
grid_options	{}	More options for the grid.
reticle_color	rgb(178, 50, 178)	The color of the reticle.
reticle_size	20	Whether to show the reticle in the middle.
samp	False	Wether to allow sending data via the SAMP protocol.
show_catalog	True	Whether to show the catalog.
show_context_menu	True	Whether the right click should start the contextual menu.
show_coo_grid	False	Whether the coordinates grid should be shown at startup.
show_coo_grid_control	True	Whether to show the coordinate grid control toolbar.
show_coo_location	True	Whether to show the coordinates bar.
show_fov	True	Whether to show the field of view indicator.
show_frame	True	Whether to show the viewport frame.
show_fullscreen_control	True	Whether to show the fullscreen control toolbar.
show_layers_control	True	Whether to show the layers control button.
show_projection_control	True	Whether to show the coordinate location indicator.
show_reticle	True	Whether to show the reticle in the middle of the view.
show_settings_control	True	Whether to show the settings control toolbar.
show_share_control	False	Whether to show the share control toolbar.
show_simbad_pointer_control	True	Whether to show the Simbad pointer control toolbar.
show_status_bar	True	Whether to show the status bar.
show_zoom_control	False	Whether to show the zoom control toolbar.

Setting the view’s parameters#

Aladin commands

Use of functions on ipyaladin widgets

Planetary surveys

Retrieving information from the current widget view#

Retrieving data from the current widget’s view

Note about the WCS#

To calculate the WCS, ipyaladin needs to know its ows size. However, to optimize the speed of the rendering of notebooks, Jupyter reduces the size of the output of the cells that are outside of the view. This causes ipyaladin to calculate WCS with the wrong field of view. We raise a WidgetReducedError in this case. Here are a few workarounds for this issue:

2. Disabling the optimization in the notebook parameters#

To disable the option that reduces the widget when it is out of the view, you can go to Settings, Settings Editor, Notebook, and set Windowing mode to none. This can make your notebook slower if you have a lot of cells.