astrometry.net-docker

Docker scripts for local astrometry.net server.

Version: 0.85 (tested also with 0.84)

References:

• Website: https://astrometry.net/
• NOVA: https://nova.astrometry.net/
• Documentation: https://astrometry.net/doc
• Data files: http://data.astrometry.net/
• GitHub repository: https://github.com/dstndstn/astrometry.net

Description

The container need to run with the option --net=host, with all its implications.

The Dockerfile is obtained by merging the two Dockerfiles in the astrometry.net official repository (see here), with some modifications to use a fixed version. You may need to change the exposed port (default: 8000) and the version (not recommended).

The script setup-and-start-nova.sh is copied into the image ad it is executed as the default command when starting a container: it setups and patches the environment to make the server work, since the instructions in the official repository, at the moment writing this file, creates a non-working server.

You may need to change:

• the openssh-server port (default: 2222), remmember to change also the client configuration;
• the index files (default: 4200 (2MASS));
• the default scale (astrometry.net default: 0.1-180, default in this repository: 0.05-5).

Finally, since the server run in localhost, you need to use a reverse proxy to make the server reachable from other computers; an example in the nova-reverse-proxy file (it is a nginx configuration file).

Index files

You need to download the index files from here.

The folder structure need to be:

index-folder
├── 4100
│   ├── index-...
│   ├── ...
├── 4200
│   ├── index-...
│   ├── ...
├── 5000
│   ├── index-...
│   ├── ...
├── hd.fits
├── hip.fits
├── tycho2-cut.fits
├── tycho2.kd
└── tycho2-mag4.fits

Installation

Build and execute with:

docker build --tag astrometrynet/astrometrynet:0.85 .
ASTROMETRY_INDEX_PATH='/your/path/to/index-folder'
ASTROMETRY_SUBMISSIONS_PATH='/your/path/to/submissions'
docker run --detach --net=host --volume=$ASTROMETRY_INDEX_PATH:/data1/INDEXES --volume=$ASTROMETRY_SUBMISSIONS_PATH:/src/astrometry/net/data --name=astrometrynet --restart=always astrometrynet/astrometrynet:0.85

As you can see, there are two volumes:

• ASTROMETRY_INDEX_PATH='/path/to/index-folder'. This volume contain the index files: this folder must have the structure illustrated in the previous section.
• ASTROMETRY_SUBMISSIONS_PATH='/path/to/submissions'. This volume contain the persistent submissions database, i.e. images, jobs informations and results. At the first launch, this folder should be an empty folder, the container will populate it. If you don't want a persistent submissions database, simply do not specify this volume.

You can also use docker-compose. Be sure to change the volume paths with:

volumes:
    - /your/path/to/index-folder:/data1/INDEXES
    - /your/path/to/submissions:/src/astrometry/net/data