Command line unix tools for Exploration of Astronomical Objects

These command line bash programs, written by SR Kulkarni, are useful for quick gathering of information of a small samples of astronomical objects. The philosophy behind this suite is similar to Unix: each tool does one thing (hopefully very well) and tools can be chained (ouputs can be piped).

I am continually updating the programs. The latest version of the tools, packaged as a tar file, can be found here. Potential users: please reload on a weekly basis (until the package suite is stable). Feedback is appreciated.

Installation: You need to install the entire suite (there are modest dependencies; for example, mdrGaia calls csGaia etc). Also SRKutils relies on tools that are not a part of the vanilla Unix system:

gdate, gjoin, gsed, jq, textutil, csv package (csvcut, csvlook, csvjson...)

(may be others but need feedback). Next, if the tool you are invoking calls TNS or ADS then you need tokens defined as follows:

export ADS_TOKEN="xxxxxx...."
export TNS_API_KEY="yyyyy...."

Return back to SRK Unix site.
  1. ztime | time around the world
  2. fluxTSA | daily TSA passenger flux
  3. wsNuSTAR | weekly schedule of the NuSTAR Observatory
  4. wsCXO | weekly schedule of the Chandra X-ray Observatory
  5. ltsCXO | long term schedule of the Chandra X-ray Observatory
  6. dsSwift | daily schedule for Swift Observatory schedule

  7. ds2ux | convert Microsft DOS files to Unix
  8. txt2uri | translate ASCII text to URI coding
  9. expar | extract desired parameters from pipe
  10. rc2mat | convert row|column vector to matrix with desired row size
  11. multi2one | Convert multi-line data structures to single line de-limited records

  12. ql_dlm | quick look of delimited files
  13. dlm2json | convert dlm file to JSON format
  14. col2json | convert dual-column file to JSON format
  15. ex_dlm | extract columns from data-limited (e.g. tsv) files
  16. xml2dlm | convert xml table to dlm
  17. hdr_vot | display head of a vot file (currently tuned for Gaia)
  18. vo2dlm | convert VO table to delimited file (e.g. tsv)
  19. ipac2csv | convert classical-style IPAC table to csv

  20. coco | coordinate coverter: Sumerian <-> degrees
  21. eq2gal | equatorial to Galactic
  22. pm2gal | equatorial proper motion to Galactic frame

  23. qmTNS | query TNS events by the month
  24. exTNS | extract columns from TNS files
  25. objTNS | given AT/SN name return information from TNS
  26. csTNS | cone-search TNS for given ra& dec

  27. csSim | cone search Simbad
  28. objSim | given Object Name return Simbad summary
  29. qsSim | analyzes output of "csSim"

  30. csNED | cone search NED
  31. objNED | object search NED

  32. csGaia | cone search Gaia (DR1,DR2,EDR3)
  33. fnsGaia | given RA & Dec, find nearest star in Gaia catalog
  34. mdrGaia | consolidated multi-DR Gaia measurements for given object

  35. lcNEOWISE | cone search NEOWISE light curve
  36. csWISE | cone search WISE

  37. psSDSS | get postage stamp from SDSS finder chart service
  38. csPS1_STRM | cone search PS1 STRM catalog

  39. csChandra | cone search Chandra catalog
  40. csEPIC | cone search XMM-Newton EPIC catalog
  41. ulSXRT | cone search Swift XRT catalog and derive upper limits
  42. csSXPS | cone search Serendipitous Swift X-ray Catalog


  43. dline | draw a "%--.." line (for developers)
  44. dependencies | list the dependency of each tool
  45. bc2top | given bibcodes, return titles of top papers
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