Rapthor FITS catalogue view

hebog.adapters.rapthor_catalogue is the eight-column catalogue codec for Rapthor's filter_skymodel diagnostics. It writes and reads the smallest FITS table Rapthor reads directly, from the catalogue find_sources publishes. hebog.adapters.find_sector_sources writes it as <root>.source_catalog.fits beside Rapthor's other files; Rapthor's own task that calls the adapter is on Rapthor's Hebog branch, not yet merged. The internal catalogue is described in the output reference.

Columns

The codec writes exactly the eight fields read directly by the pinned Rapthor diagnostic path:

Column	FITS type	Unit	Internal meaning
Source_id	32-bit integer	none	deterministic zero-based row number
RA	64-bit float	deg	ICRS right ascension
DEC	64-bit float	deg	ICRS declination
Isl_Total_flux	64-bit float	Jy	parent island pixel-sum flux
Total_flux	64-bit float	Jy	the source's published integrated flux
DC_Maj	64-bit float	deg	deconvolved major FWHM
E_RA	64-bit float	deg	optional formal RA error, as a great-circle angle (not divided by cos(dec))
E_DEC	64-bit float	deg	optional formal Dec error, as a great-circle angle

Total_flux carries the source flux the internal catalogue publishes. For the continuum profile that is the sum of the source's fitted Gaussian components, which is how PyBDSF defines it and what Rapthor's photometry check compares against; a source with no admitted fit carries its signed aperture. Isl_Total_flux is the island sum, which Rapthor carries only through its astrometry check.

DC_Maj, E_RA and E_DEC are what Rapthor cuts on: it keeps a source for its checks when DC_Maj is under 10 arcsec and both errors are under 2 arcsec. Under continuum a source of one fitted Gaussian publishes that Gaussian's values, so it passes the cuts as a compact row does; a source of several components has no position error and no deconvolved size, so Rapthor leaves it out of those checks. On the agreement check's cases that dropped 151 to 168 sources pinned PyBDSF master keeps; under compact, the profile Rapthor runs, every source is one Gaussian. A source whose fit is not significantly extended publishes DC_Maj 0 however wide the fit, so it passes the 10-arcsec cut: every profile published about 1,700 such rows from fits of 10 arcsec or more, against master's 439, and compact with a zero background kept 339 matched sources that master's cuts drop.

Rapthor reads the FITS table with Astropy. Its diagnostic conversion then writes Source_id, RA, DEC, and the selected flux to a minimal makesourcedb text model, which LSMTool loads. LSMTool does not directly read the source-list FITS product, so it is not a core or test dependency of this adapter.

Missing values

Internal null deconvolved shapes with the unresolved flag become the PyBDSF-compatible DC_Maj = 0 sentinel only in this view. Unavailable errors become FITS NaN values and read back as masked Astropy values; they are never serialized as zero. The empty catalogue retains all eight columns and zero rows. The writer requires the J2000.0 position epoch the finder publishes (hebog.data_models.catalogues.POSITION_EPOCH).

Publication

The writer uses a same-directory temporary file, validates the closed FITS product before publication, adds deterministic FITS checksums, reuses an identical destination on retry, and rejects conflicting existing bytes. The reader rejects a table whose columns, units or types differ from the schema above and translates an unreadable file into the codec's own error.

Per-channel catalogue columns used by later Rapthor flux normalization, complete sky-model filtering, and orchestration are not part of this boundary.