Kepler & K2
The new lightkurve Python package
for Kepler and K2 data analysis, which we first announced in March,
contains a new feature: to_fits().
The feature solves a common use case for authors of custom lightcurves
who wish to share their lightcurves with collaborators or contribute
them to MAST as a High Level Science Product (HLSP).
Lightkurve now provides a to_fits() method on every LightCurve object
which enables a lightcurve to be saved as a FITS file in the standard format
adopted by the Kepler and TESS pipelines.
For example, this snippet of code will create a lightcurve file called output.fits:
from lightkurve import LightCurve
llc = LightCurve(time=[1, 2, 3], flux=[1.02, 0.98, 1.01])
lc.to_fits('output.fits')
A more comprehensive tutorial, which also explains how to include the custom header keywords required by MAST, is available in the lightkurve documentation.
Note that you will need to upgrade your installation of lightkurve to the latest version
(v1.0b8) to use this feature. This can be done via the command line as follows:
$ pip install lightkurve --upgrade
We invite you to try out to_fits() today and let us know if you have any problems by opening a GitHub issue.