Frequently Asked Questions

The following are some common questions or issues.

What are these x error bars?

The x error bars are the bandwidth of each flux density measurement (see full explanation).

ATNF reference error

If you see an error that looks similar to this:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "sifit.py", line 10, in <module>
    cat_list = collect_catalogue_fluxes()
File "/pawsey/mwa/software/python3/pulsar_spectra/master/lib/python3.8/site-packages/pulsar_spectra/catalogue.py", line 267, in collect_catalogue_fluxes
    atnf_dict = all_flux_from_atnf(query=query)
File "/pawsey/mwa/software/python3/pulsar_spectra/master/lib/python3.8/site-packages/pulsar_spectra/catalogue.py", line 176, in all_flux_from_atnf
    freq_all, flux_all, flux_err_all, references = flux_from_atnf(jname, query=query, ref_dict=ref_dict)
File "/pawsey/mwa/software/python3/pulsar_spectra/master/lib/python3.8/site-packages/pulsar_spectra/catalogue.py", line 140, in flux_from_atnf
    ref = convert_atnf_ref(ref_code, ref_dict=ref_dict)
File "/pawsey/mwa/software/python3/pulsar_spectra/master/lib/python3.8/site-packages/pulsar_spectra/catalogue.py", line 50, in convert_atnf_ref
    ref_string_list = ref_dict[ref_code].split()
KeyError: 'bgt+21'

The KeyError is likely due to a change in the in psrcat.db file that psrqpy has not updated in their cache. To fix it run the following command

import psrqpy
psrqpy.get_references(updaterefcache=True)
psrqpy.QueryATNF(checkupdate=True)

Then try your script again.

ATNF label on plot

If you see a reference label ending in _ATNF (see below for an example), those flux density measurements were imported from the ATNF catalogue.

_images/atnf_label_example.png

The ATNF catalogue values often record flux density measurements at the nearest standard frequency which can be inaccurate and should be replaced with the actual value. If you see the _ATNF label, you should look up the ATNF reference and incorporate the true values into the pulsar_spectra catalouge.