Follow-up triggering
The vast majority of follow-up instruments will require some form of authentication. All such information is passed through the altdata
variable of the Allocation
s API. We briefly describe the authentication form the available telescopes take below:
ATLAS Forced Photometry: A user account must be made on https://fallingstar-data.com/forcedphot/, at which point the authentication takes the form
{"api_token": "testtoken"}
.GENERIC: There are three generic methods for distributing follow-up requests. The first is through API, where the user provides {”endpoint”: “API_ENDPOINT”, “api_token”: “token”} where API_ENDPOINT is the telescope API endpoint. The second is through slack, where the user provides {”type”: “slack”, “slack_workspace”: “XXX”, “slack_channel”: “YYY”, “slack_token”: “ZZZ”}. The third is by email, where the user provides {”type”: “email”, “email”: “email_1@gmail.com,email_2@gmail.com”}. Both slack and email also allow for “comment”:”True” to indicate that comment text should also be shared in the message.
KAIT: A username and password are passed as
{"username": "username", "password": "password"}
.LCO: A user account must be made on https://lco.global/, at which point the authentication takes the form
{"PROPOSAL_ID": "your_proposal_ID", "API_TOKEN": "testtoken", "API_ARCHIVE_TOKEN": "testarchivetoken"}
. The submission token is available directly from https://observe.lco.global while the archive token can be aquired by API: ar = requests.post(’https://archive-api.lco.global/api-token-auth/’, data = {’username’: username, ‘password’: password}) ar_token = ar.json()[’token’]LT: A proposal ID, username, and password are passed as
{"username": "username", "password": "password", "LT_proposalID": "your_proposal_ID"}
.MMA: There are two generic methods for distributing observation plans. The first is through API, where the user provides {”protocol”: “http/https”, “host”: “host”, “port”: “port”, “access_token”: “token”}, and the second through scp, where the user provides {”host”: “host”, “port”: “port”, “username”: “username”, “password”: “password”, “directory”: “output_directory”}.
NICER: A username and password (as entered at https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/ark/nicertoo/) are passed as
{"username": "username", "password": "password"}
.SLACK: As discussed further here, slack information is pass as
{"slack_workspace": "XXX", "slack_channel": "YYY", "slack_token": "ZZZ"}
.SWIFT Triggering: A username and password are passed as
{"username": "username", "secret": "password"}
.SWIFT XRT Reductions: A user account must be made with the Swift-XRT data products API platform (see https://www.swift.ac.uk/user_objects/register.php to register). The authentication then is the email of the user
"XRT_UserID": "swift_email"}
where swift_email is the email address used upon sign up.ZTF Triggering: An API token for an admin user for Kowalski can be passed as
{"access_token": "your_token"}
.ZTF Forced Photometry: A user account must be made with the ZTF forced photometry service (see https://zwicky.tf/vgt). The authentication then takes the form
{"ipac_http_user": "http_user", "ipac_http_password": "http_password", "ipac_email": "email", "ipac_userpass": "password"}
where http_user and http_password are provided in the documentation and ipac_email and ipac_userpass are provided for the specific account. Note that IPAC’s forced photometry database is updated once per hour, on the hour, and requests will only be available after this update.