Quick Start

This page walks you through running HexMaps on the NGC 5194 example data.

Step 1 — Initialise a Working Directory

$ hexmaps --init --workdir ~/hexmaps_example
$ cd ~/hexmaps_example

This creates config.txt, keys/, and run_hexmaps.py in the working directory.

Step 2 — Download the Example Data

$ hexmaps --download-example --workdir ~/hexmaps_example

This fetches ~46 MB of NGC 5194 FITS files into ~/hexmaps_example/data/. The bundled config.txt is already configured to use these files.

Use --force to re-download files that already exist.

Step 3 — Run the Pipeline

$ hexmaps --conf config.txt

Or equivalently:

$ python run_hexmaps.py

The pipeline prints progress to the terminal and writes the output to output/. To also produce FITS moment maps and band images:

$ hexmaps --conf config.txt --stages all

Note

All input FITS filenames must follow the convention:

<source_name><file_extension>

For example: ngc5194_12co21.fits, where ngc5194 is the source name and _12co21.fits is the file extension defined in config.txt. The source name must also appear in keys/target_definitions.txt.

Step 4 — Inspect the Output

See Working with HexMaps Output for how to open and explore the output database.