Galaxy Tools

Marvin Tools provide the core functionality for accessing MaNGA data with Marvin. At the lowest level they are class wrappers around data products or elements (DRP datacubes, DAP maps, and spaxels). Their purpose is to provide a more natural way to interact with the data, unconstrained by specific data storage architectures such as files or databases. The tools are built on top of the data access modes, which abstracts the data access regardless of their actual origin. Marvin Tools provide:

The following sections explain how to use the tools in detail. They assume that you have read our Getting Started and are familiar with Astropy quantities.

Using the tools

Common Tools Features

Visual guide

All object- and search-based tools in Marvin are linked together. To better understand the flow amongst the various Tools, here is a visual guide.

marvin visual guide
  • The red squares and green squares indicate the set of Marvin Tools available.
  • The orange circles highlight how each Tool links together via a method or an attribute. In each transition link, a lowercase Tool name represents an instantiation of that tool, e.g. cube = Cube(). To go from a Marvin Cube to a Marvin Spaxel, you can use the cube.getSpaxel method or the cube[x,y] notation. Conversely, to go from a Spaxel to a Cube, you would use the spaxel.cube attribute. Single or bidirectional arrows tell you which directions you can flow to and from the various tools.
  • Purple circles represent display endpoints. If you want to display something, this shows you how which tool the plotting command is connected to, and how to navigate there.


Tools[input, filename, …]) A class to interface with MaNGA DRP data cubes.[input, filename, …]) A class to interface with a MaNGA DRP row-stacked spectra file.[input, filename, …]) A class that represents a DAP MAPS file.[input, …]) A class to interface with MaNGA DAP model cubes.[input, filename, …]) A class to interface with MaNGA images.

Quantities A class describing a measurement with additional information. A class representing an spectrum with extra functionality. Describes 2D array object with addtional features., rss, …) A Quantity representing a fibre observation. A Quantity-powered representation of a 3D data cube.

MixIns[nsa_source]) A mixin that provides access to NSA paremeters. A mixin that provides access to DAPall paremeters.