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shbhuk / barycorrpy

Python version of Barycorr
GNU General Public License v3.0
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Switching to Astropy for Leap Second updates #40

Closed shbhuk closed 3 years ago

shbhuk commented 3 years ago

Astropy v4.0.4 onwards, has included the feature to automatically update leap seconds using the IERS bulletins.

Currently for barycorrpy, we are maintaining a separate leap second which is automatically updated using the USNO Servers - http://maia.usno.navy.mil/ser7/tai-utc.dat

Considering that this URL is now broken, and Astropy has incorporated this feature, we will switch from maintaining leap seconds with barycorrpy to using Astropy for this.

To enable this, we will require astropy to be >= v4.0.4.

shbhuk commented 3 years ago

This is particularly important for users running older versions of barycorrpy and astropy, since the current USNO URL being used to query leap seconds is broken. In this case, the code defaults to using astropy for checking the leapseconds. This is not an issue right now, since there have not, and will not be any leap seconds released between 2017 and June 2021. If there is a new leap second released on or after June 2021, then users running astropy < 4.0.4 (irrespective of barycorrpy version) will have incorrect time conversions as well as barycentric calculations. Therefore for barycorrpy versions > 0.4.0, we are introducing a requirement for astropy versions > 4.0.4.

shbhuk commented 3 years ago

Closed in PR #41