VoidDruid / fink-client

Light-weight client to manipulate alerts from Fink

Fink client

fink-client is a light package to manipulate catalogs and alerts issued from the fink broker programmatically. Learn how to connect and use it by checking the documentation.

Installation

fink_client requires a version of Python 3.7+. To install it, just run

pip install fink-client

Registration

In order to connect and poll alerts from Fink, you need to get your credentials:

1. Subscribe to one or more Fink streams by filling this form.
2. After filling the form, we will send your credentials. Register them on your laptop by simply running:

fink_client_register -username <USERNAME> -group_id <GROUP_ID> ...

Usage

Once you have your credentials, you are ready to poll streams!

fink_consumer -h
usage: fink_consumer [-h] [--display] [-limit LIMIT] [--available_topics]
                     [--save] [-outdir OUTDIR] [-schema SCHEMA]

Kafka consumer to listen and archive Fink streams

optional arguments:
  -h, --help          show this help message and exit
  --display           If specified, print on screen information about incoming
                      alert.
  -limit LIMIT        If specified, download only `limit` alerts. Default is
                      None.
  --available_topics  If specified, print on screen information about
                      available topics.
  --save              If specified, save alert data on disk (Avro). See also
                      -outdir.
  -outdir OUTDIR      Folder to store incoming alerts if --save is set. It
                      must exist.
  -schema SCHEMA      Avro schema to decode the incoming alerts. Default is
                      None (latest version downloaded from server)

You can also look at an alert on the disk:

fink_alert_viewer -h
usage: fink_alert_viewer [-h] [-filename FILENAME]

Display cutouts and lightcurve from a ZTF alert

optional arguments:
  -h, --help          show this help message and exit
  -filename FILENAME  Path to an alert data file (avro format)

Learn how to use fink-client by following the dedicated tutorial. It should not take long to learn it!