Hebog

Hebog is a scalable source finder for radio continuum images, and it is experimental. Given a FITS image it estimates the background and noise, detects compact and extended emission, fits Gaussians, and publishes a source catalogue, an RMS image, a source mask and diagnostics. The same code runs in a single process or across a Dask cluster that you already own.

Status

Hebog is not yet scientifically qualified and currently accepts images of at most 22,500 pixels per side. Treat its output as measurements to evaluate. See capability and status.

I am an astronomer

• FAQ for astronomers: where each common question is answered, and how to judge what a catalogue supports, with literature links.
• Install Hebog and find sources in your first image.
• Choose thresholds and a profile.
• How Hebog finds sources: the algorithms, with diagrams.
• Hebog and other source finders: how it compares with PyBDSF, Aegean, Selavy and others.
• Output reference: every column, unit and flag.
• Glossary: what island, source, Gaussian component, RMS, tile and the other terms mean here.

I am a pipeline developer or architect

• FAQ for developers and architects: where each common question is answered, with background for non-astronomers.
• Progress against goals: where Hebog stands against its 1.0.0 definition, on one page.
• Integrate Hebog into a pipeline.
• Architecture overview and how Hebog distributes work.
• Python API.
• Glossary, including the execution terms tile, core, halo, pass and round.
• Contribute to Hebog.

How this documentation is organised

The documentation follows the Diátaxis framework. The User guide holds the tutorial, how-to guides, explanation and reference an astronomer needs. The Developer guide holds the same four kinds of page for people who integrate or extend Hebog. Significant architecture decisions live in ADRs.