match_coordinates_sky

astropy.coordinates.match_coordinates_sky(matchcoord, catalogcoord, nthneighbor=1, storekdtree=u'_kdtree_sky')

Finds the nearest on-sky matches of a coordinate or coordinates in a set of catalog coordinates.

This finds the on-sky closest neighbor, which is only different from the 3-dimensional match if distance is set in either matchcoord or catalogcoord.

Parameters:

matchcoord : BaseCoordinateFrame or SkyCoord

The coordinate(s) to match to the catalog.

catalogcoord : BaseCoordinateFrame or SkyCoord

The base catalog in which to search for matches. Typically this will be a coordinate object that is an array (i.e., catalogcoord.isscalar == False)

nthneighbor : int, optional

Which closest neighbor to search for. Typically 1 is desired here, as that is correct for matching one set of coordinates to another. The next likely use case is 2, for matching a coordinate catalog against itself (1 is inappropriate because each point will find itself as the closest match).

storekdtree : bool or str, optional

If a string, will store the KD-Tree used for the computation in the catalogcoord, as an attrbute in catalogcoord with the provided name. This dramatically speeds up subsequent calls with the same catalog. If False, the KD-Tree is discarded after use.

Returns:

idx : integer array

Indecies into catalogcoord to get the matched points for each matchcoord. Shape matches matchcoord.

sep2d : Angle

The on-sky separation between the closest match for each matchcoord and the matchcoord. Shape matches matchcoord.

dist3d : Quantity

The 3D distance between the closest match for each matchcoord and the matchcoord. Shape matches matchcoord. If either matchcoord or catalogcoord don’t have a distance, this is the 3D distance on the unit sphere, rather than a true distance.

Notes

This function requires SciPy to be installed or it will fail.