I recently finished work on a Python course for Astronomy and Astrophysics, sponsored by the South East Physics network (SEPnet), called Astro in Python. It takes the form of Jupyter notebooks, each one covering a particular topic or Python module, and is intended to be a self-contained, one-stop shop; just download the notebook and associated data and work through the code.

The course is aimed at final year undergraduates, graduate students, or anyone who wants an accessible introduction to a particular Python topic in the field. SEPnet were willing to allow the course to be made open source, so take a look and let me know what you think! Here’s an example notebook on plotting images.

I’m hoping to continue working on this, adding more notebooks on modules that I find useful. I’d also encourage you, if you find the format useful, to contribute your own notebooks, or suggestions, for modules you found useful or on topics you would like to see introductions to.

All of the work herein took liberal inspiration from the documentation of the relevant packages, and is in no way intended to replace it. The intention is only to provide a quick and accessible introduction; once up to speed, I encourage everyone to consult the relevant documentation for a more in depth look at how to use a particular package.

demo