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Astromancer

Astromancer is the UNC-developed suite of astronomical data-analysis tools aimed at education — instructor-led labs and student exercises in observational astronomy. It's hosted at https://astromancer.skynet.unc.edu and shares single sign-on with Skynet, so students who submit observations through Skynet can analyze them in Astromancer without re-authenticating.

When to use Astromancer

Astromancer is the right surface when you're:

  • A student following a structured astronomy lab (variable stars, cluster CMDs, exoplanet transits, radio mapping exercises).
  • An instructor assigning that lab and want a sandboxed analysis environment that won't break if a student does something unexpected.
  • Working through a guided exercise that scaffolds the analysis rather than expecting full operator-level control.

For research-grade, custom analysis workflows, Skynet's in-app data tools or Afterglow are usually a better fit.

How it connects to Skynet

  • Single sign-on — log in with your Skynet account; observations and observing accounts you have access to in Skynet are reachable from Astromancer.
  • Observation handoff — once an observation completes in Skynet, open it in Astromancer from the observation detail page for the guided analysis appropriate to that observation type.
  • Result persistence — Astromancer can write results back into the observation record so completed analyses live alongside the data.

Where to go from here

Astromancer's own documentation covers each tool in detail and is the canonical reference for the lab workflows it ships with. From Skynet, the easiest entry point is the "Open in Astromancer" handoff on a completed observation.