Tutorials

Here's a summary table of the tutorials we have currently planned (subject to change a bit based on feedback from participants):

Join

Register

Anyone is welcome to join the workshop. There is no registration fee.
Unforunately, we cannot refund travel or accommodation expenses.

To register, please fill out the following Google form: Register for PyGamma15.
If you're new to Python or git/Github, please spend some time before the workshop and Prepare.

If you have any questions, please send an email to Christoph Deil.

Logistics

The workshop starts on Monday morning, so you should travel to Heidelberg on Sunday, November 15. On Friday, the official program ends at noon (12.30 am), so you can take a train or flight home on Friday afternoon. We will still have free coding sprint sessions on Friday afternoon and go for drinks and a movie Friday evening, for those that can stay in Heidelberg until Saturday.

The MPIK institute where the workshop takes place is located on a small hill outside of Heidelberg. The route from MPIK to Bismarckplatz (the central place in Heidelberg) is shown here.

The trip with bus number 39 from bus stop "Bismarckplatz" to "MPI Kernphysik" takes 15 minutes. In the morning, you can take the bus that leaves Bismarckplatz at 8.43 am and arrives at MPIK at 8.57 am (14 minutes), to be in time for the first session which starts 9:15 am. In case you take the bus at another time, note that only buses directed to Königsthul stop at "MPI Kernphysik". However, you can also take bus 39 in the direction of EMBL or Rohrbach-Süd and get off at "Bierhelderhof", then walk uphill less than five minutes to reach the institute. See bus schedule information.

The image below shows a map of MPIK, including the bus stop and entrance gate (building 01), the guest house (buildings 05 and 06), the approximate location of the workshop rooms in building 12, and the direction to the EMBL canteen where we will go for lunch.

Upon your first arrival please stop at the entrance gate (building 01) and ask for a visitor pass for the whole week.

There is the option to stay at the guest house at MPIK (35 euro per night). The number of available rooms there is quite limited and in case you want to stay there, please contact Peter Eger as soon as possible. In case you want to stay downtown we suggest to look for hotels close to Bismarckplatz. Although, Heidelberg is quite small, so if you don't mind walking a bit you can also stay in other areas such as Bergheim, Weststadt, or even on the other side of the Neckar in Neuenheim. Please contact Peter Eger if you if you have any questions concerning accomodation.

Prepare

If you're new to Python or haven't contributed to open-source project with git/GitHub, please spend some time to learn it before the workshop. The tutorials at this workshop will not be at the absolute beginner level (but not very advanced either).

If you're unsure if this workshop is appropriate for you, here's a list of things we expect most participants to fulfill:

• A laptop with a working scientific Python setup (we recommend you to install Anaconda, packages from Linux package managers are often very old).
• A Github account - it's free. Ideally, you should have successfully run git commit, branch, push, pull, maybe even merge or rebase.
• Some experience with writing Python functions and classes. You should know what a Python module and package is. The IPython terminal/notebook should be familiar.
• You should have done some X-ray or gamma-ray data analysis, ideally using a Python script.
• The tutorials will all list their "requirements for participation" separately. E.g. if you want to participate in the Fermi-LAT data analysis tutorial, you need to have the ScienceTools and FermiPy installed, but this is not needed for the rest of the workshop.

There are many great resources freely available online that you can use to prepare for the workshop:

• If you don't have a scientific Python stack installed on your computer, try it out online at https://try.jupyter.org/ (this uses the Jupyter notbook, formerly known as the IPython notebook) and then to install it on your machine, we recommend Anaconda as a free, cross-platform (Linux, Mac, Windows) scientific Python distribution.
• The git version control system and code development on Github. The Github bootcamp help page contains links to excellent tutorials and resources.
• The Scipy Lecture Notes are a good tutorial to learn about Numpy, Scipy and Matplotlib and scientific Python.
• The Practical Python for Astronomers tutorials are a good resource to learn about Astropy and specifically the Fitting and Modeling 1-D and 2-D Data tutorial to get started with Sherpa.
• Since Python is very popular overall, and specifically in Astronomy, there's of course a ton of other free tutorials, books and resources available online, e.g. the Python for Astronomers web site or the Astropy tutorials.
• If you are completely new to Python, and have time, you can of course read a Python programming book (there's some free books listed here). But it turns out that for effective scientific computing and data analysis, this isn't really needed, and some basic knowledge on functions, classes and modules can get you a long way!

Participants

1. Antonio Marinelli (University of Pisa, Italy)
2. Axel Donath (MPIK, Heidelberg, Germany)
3. Catherine Boisson (Observatoire Paris/Meudon, France)
4. Christoph Deil (MPIK, Heidelberg, Germany)
5. Daniel Pumpe (MPIA, München, Germany)
6. Ellis Owen (UCL-MSSL, Dorking, England)
7. Francois Brun (CEA, Paris, France)
8. Jean Jacquemier (LAPP, Annecy, France)
9. Jeremy Perkins (GSFC, Greenbelt, MD, USA)
10. Joachim Hahn (MPIK, Heidelberg, Germany)
11. Johannes King (MPIK, Heidelberg, Germany)
12. Julien Lefaucheur (Observatoire Paris/Meudon, France)
13. Justine Devin (LUPM, Montpellier, France)
14. Karl Kosack (CEA, Paris, France)
15. Lea Jouvin (APC, Paris, France)
16. Leonardo Di Venere (INFN, Bari, Italy)
17. Luigi Tibaldo (MPIK, Heidelberg, Germany)
18. Massimo Capasso (IAAT, Tübingen, Germany)
19. Matthew Wood (SLAC, Stanford, USA)
20. Nathan Kelley-Hoskins (DESY, Zeuthen, Germany)
21. Peter Eger (MPIK, Heidelberg, Germany)
22. Pierre Aubert (LAPP, Annecy, France)
23. Régis Terrier (APC, Paris, France)
24. Salvatore Mangano (CIEMAT, Madrid, Spain)
25. Victor Zabalza (Leicester, UK)
26. Vikas Joshi (MPIK, Heidelberg, Germany)
27. Vincent Marandon (MPIK, Heidelberg, Germany)
28. Xiaona Sun (MPIK, Heidelberg, Germany)

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Sponsors

This workshop is kindly sponsored by: