PHOTfun - PSF Photometry and IFU Spectral Extraction Toolkit

Description

PHOTfun is a Python package designed to streamline PSF photometry workflows using the DAOPHOT-II suite. It provides a modern graphical interface powered by the Shiny web framework, along with the PHOTcube extension for extracting stellar spectra from IFU datacubes.

Designed with professional astronomers in mind, PHOTfun enables efficient PSF-based analysis and visualization even in highly crowded fields.

Installation

Before using PHOTfun, install the package from PyPI:

pip install photfun

Important: PHOTfun depends on the DAOPHOT-II suite (written in Fortran). If DAOPHOT is not already installed on your machine, you must use Docker to run the pre-packaged environment.

Optional: Use Docker (Recommended if DAOPHOT is Not Installed)

We provide a Docker image with PHOTfun, DAOPHOT-II, and all dependencies pre-installed:

• Docker Image: ciquezada/photfun-daophot_wrapper

How to Install Docker (If DAOPHOT is Not Installed)

Ubuntu (Recommended: install Docker Desktop or follow official Docker guide)

1. Set up Docker’s apt repository:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ca-certificates curl
sudo install -m 0755 -d /etc/apt/keyrings
sudo curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg -o /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc
sudo chmod a+r /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc

2. Add the Docker repository:

echo \
  "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu \
  $(. /etc/os-release && echo "${UBUNTU_CODENAME:-$VERSION_CODENAME}") stable" | \
  sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null

3. Install Docker:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io docker-buildx-plugin docker-compose-plugin

4. Start the Docker service:

sudo service docker start

5. (Recommended) Add your user to the docker group to avoid using sudo every time:

sudo groupadd docker   # (if group doesn't exist)
sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

Log out and back in (or reboot) for group changes to take effect.

macOS

Use Homebrew:

brew install --cask docker

Then open the Docker.app from your Applications folder.

Windows

Download and install Docker Desktop from:

https://www.docker.com/products/docker-desktop/

Quick Start

If DAOPHOT-II or Docker are installed and available in your system’s $PATH, you can run PHOTfun directly after the pip install:

photfun

A local Shiny web application will launch, and a message similar to this will appear in your terminal:

INFO:     Started server process [3396]
INFO:     Waiting for application startup.
INFO:     Application startup complete.
INFO:     Uvicorn running on http://0.0.0.0:41693 (Press CTRL+C to quit)

Open the browser and visit the address that appears (e.g., http://0.0.0.0:41693) to begin using the interface. (if the IP didn't work, try the other IPs suggested during the running dialog in the terminal)

How to Use

PHOTfun GUI (PSF Photometry)

1. Launch the app with photfun
2. Upload your .fits images.
3. Use the GUI to execute:
   • FIND, PICK, PHOT, PSF, ALLSTAR, etc.
4. Visually inspect PSF stars and refine the sample interactively.

PHOTcube (IFU Spectra Extraction)

1. Load a datacube in PHOTfun.
2. The cube will be sliced into monochromatic images.
3. PSF photometry is applied across the cube.
4. Extracted fluxes are concatenated to form 1D stellar spectra.

Manual Use of DAOPHOT Inside Docker (Advanced)

You can open a shell inside the Docker container and run DAOPHOT directly:

docker run -it -v /path/to/your/data:/data ciquezada/photfun-daophot_wrapper /bin/bash

Then:

cd /data
daophot

This allows you to use DAOPHOT independently of the GUI, while keeping all dependencies encapsulated.

Dependencies

PHOTfun installs the following dependencies via pip:

• astropy==7.0.1
• faicons==0.2.2
• imageio==2.37.0
• joblib==1.4.2
• matplotlib==3.10.1
• nest_asyncio==1.6.0
• numpy==2.2.5
• pandas==2.2.3
• Pillow==11.2.1
• scipy==1.15.2
• shiny==1.4.0
• tqdm==4.67.1
• docker

Credits

• Developer: Carlos Quezada
• Inspired by the work of Álvaro Valenzuela
• Built on top of DAOPHOT-II by Peter Stetson

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.