Understand
SkyPortal is an open-source software package designed to efficiently discover interesting transients, manage follow-up, perform characterization, and visualize the results.
- By enabling fast access to archival and catalog data, cross-matching heterogeneous data streams, and the triggering and monitoring of on-demand observations for further characterization, a SkyPortal-based platform has been operating at scale for 2 yr for the Zwicky Transient Facility Phase II community, with hundreds of users, containing tens of millions of time-domain sources, interacting with dozens of telescopes, and enabling community reporting.
- While SkyPortal emphasizes rich user experiences (UX) across common frontend workflows, recognizing that scientific inquiry is increasingly performed programmatically, SkyPortal also surfaces an extensive and well-documented API system.
- From backend and frontend software to data science analysis tools and visualization frameworks, the SkyPortal design emphasizes the re-use and leveraging of best-in-class approaches, with a strong extensibility ethos.