Welcome to DRAN’s documentation!
Introduction
DRAN is a data reduction and analysis software program developed to systematically reduce and analyze HartRAO’s drift scan data collected by HartRAO’s 26m telescope. The software is a newly developed program intended to replace the old LINES program previously used at HartRAO.
The package is built on Python 3.12 and provides a set of tools to perform common analysis tasks that include but are not limited to,
Data extraction and preperation,
Data modeling and fitting, as well as
Data visualization
Caution
This project is still under active development, if you would like to contribute to the software please contact the author or submit an issue on github. Details are listed at the end of the document.
How does it work ?
DRAN uses a simple workflow which can be summarised as follows. When a file is read-in, the program creates a dictionary where all the extracted and calculated source parmeters are stored.
It then proceeds to
clean or filter out any RFI present in the data
correct or remove any drift that may be present in the data due to telescope effects, and
attempts to fit the peak of the signal (i.e. upper 30% to 50% of the beam depending on a set of predefined criteria related to the presence or lack of sidelobes).
Note
The software previously used to fit the top 30% for bright calibrator sources but this value was adjusted for both calibrator and target sources in order to maximize fitting for weak signals.
The result and other statistics are then written into a database where they can then be analysed using various statistical tools. All accompanying plots are stored in the ‘plots’ folder created in the users current working directory.
Note
Although data is primarily stored in an SQLite database, it can also easily be converted into a csv file.
The main mode of data processing in DRAN is through the The command line interface (CLI). This interface is best suited for automated or semi-automated analysis. For a more hands on approach a The graphical user interface (GUI) is also provided and is best suited for handling single file inspection, fitting and timeseries analysis.
What’s next
To get a better grasp of how the program works a set of Tutorials have been provided. For instructions on how to install DRAN see the Installation page. To jump right in, a short Quickstart Guide guide is also provided. Also please read through the Caveats to keep updated on the program limitations and assumptions made before beginning any analysis.
Acknowledging DRAN
To acknowledge DRAN in a publication please cite van Zyl P. 2023.
CONTACTS
If you have any problems, questions, ideas or suggestions, please OPEN AN ISSUE or email Dr. Pfesi van Zyl on pfesi24@gmail.com