This package contains functions useful for scientific programming, with a focus on astronomical research. The documentation details everything that is available, but some example tasks that can be handled are:

• Calculate absorption profiles for various ions observed in astrophysical environments.
• Fit a smooth continuum to a spectrum with many emission or absorption features.
• Find the expected broad-band magnitudes given a spectral energy distribution.

It requires NumPy <http://numpy.scipy.org/>_, PyFits <http://www.stsci.edu/institute/software_hardware/pyfits/Download>, ATpy <http://atpy.github.com/> and Astropy <http://astropy.org> to install. Matplotlib <http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/> and SciPy <http://www.scipy.org/>_ are also required for full functionality.

The best way to install is by using pip::

pip install barak

(You may need to put a sudo in front of this). For this to work you need to have pip <http://www.pip-installer.org/en/latest/index.html>_ installed. This method allows for easy uninstallation.

You can also simply download the tarball from the PyPI website, unpack it and then do::

python setup.py install

To run the tests you need py.test <http://pytest.org/latest/>_ installed. Then run::

py.test barak

from the barak/ directory created by the install commands above.

The latest stable package can be downloaded from PyPI: http://pypi.python.org/pypi/Barak. The development version can be downloaded from here <http://github.com/nhmc/Barak>_.

Documentation is found here: http://nhmc.github.io/Barak/

Feel free to email me if you have any questions:

neilcrighton .at. gmail .dot. com