Astropy Astronomy Workflow Skill
Guides Claude to write correct Astropy code for units, coordinate transforms, FITS I/O, tables, time scales, WCS, and cosmology.
What it does
A focused reference that helps Claude implement and debug astronomy code with Astropy.
astropy.units: quantities, conversions, equivalencies (spectral, parallax), logarithmic unitsastropy.coordinates: ICRS/Galactic/FK5/AltAz transforms, separations, catalog cross-matchingastropy.io.fits: image and table FITS reads/writes, header edits, memory-mapping large filesastropy.table: catalog I/O, filtering, joins, grouping, unit-aware QTable columnsastropy.time: UTC/TAI/TT/TDB scales, JD/MJD formats, light-travel-time correctionsastropy.wcsandcosmology: pixel↔world transforms, luminosity distance, lookback time
It also documents pinned installation for Astropy 7.2, APIs removed in 8.0, recently deprecated patterns, and which calls hit the network — so generated code stays current and avoids surprise external requests.
Who it's for
- Astronomers and astrophysics grad students analyzing observational or simulation data in Python
- Data engineers handling FITS files and astronomical catalogs
- Developers automating observing plans (altitude/azimuth, sidereal time)
Examples
- "Convert this coordinate list to Galactic and compute Alt/Az for my observatory tonight" → SkyCoord + AltAz frame code
- "Cross-match two FITS catalogs within 1 arcsec" →
match_to_catalog_skyplus separation filtering - "Give luminosity distance and lookback time at z=1.5 with Planck18" → an
astropy.cosmologyscript
· · · Install guide · · ·
Try it now, no install
Paste this into Claude to use the skill without installing anything.
Read the instructions in this file and follow them to help me: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/K-Dense-AI/scientific-agent-skills/HEAD/skills/astropy/SKILL.md What I want: (describe your task here)
If Claude can't open the link, open it yourself and paste the contents instead.
↓ If it works for you, download the ZIP below and install it. Then it runs on its own — no pasting each time.
Install in the Claude app (no terminal)
- Download the ZIP with the button below.
- In Claude, open Settings → Capabilities and turn on 'Code execution and file creation'. (one time)
- Go to Customize → Skills → + → 'Upload a skill' and upload the ZIP.
Install in Claude Code
Let Claude do it — paste this into Claude Code
Install the skill I found on Claude Skill Mart. Copy the skills/astropy folder from the GitHub repo K-Dense-AI/scientific-agent-skills into my ~/.claude/skills/astropy/. When it's done, tell me in one line what this skill can do.
Install with a command instead
git clone https://github.com/K-Dense-AI/scientific-agent-skills.git && mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && cp -r scientific-agent-skills/skills/astropy ~/.claude/skills/⚠ This is a third-party skill. Check the source repository before installing.
- Open a terminal.
- Clone the repo:
git clone https://github.com/K-Dense-AI/scientific-agent-skills.git - Create the skills folder:
mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills - Copy the skill:
cp -r scientific-agent-skills/skills/astropy ~/.claude/skills/ - Verify the
references/directory with its .md files came along. - Install the library:
uv pip install "astropy[recommended]==7.2.0"(Python 3.11+ required). - Restart Claude Code and try a prompt like "write astropy code to transform these coordinates to Galactic".