MAST: New Catalogs module using VO-TAP by snbianco · Pull Request #3582 · astropy/astroquery · GitHub

This pull request introduces a major refactor and modernization of the Catalogs interface in the MAST module, focusing on switching from the portal and catalogs.mast to VO-TAP. This interface has unified query workflows and enhanced discovery and filtering capabilities. It's a big one!

For a quick rundown of the intended workflow, I recommend starting with the new documentation (mast_catalog.rst).

MAST Catalogs Interface Refactor and Enhancements:

The Catalogs interface is now centered around VO-TAP queries, replacing previous catalog-specific assumptions. It introduces new discovery helpers (get_collections, get_catalogs, get_column_metadata) and adds a supports_spatial_queries method to check for positional-query support before querying.
Query methods (query_criteria, query_region, query_object) have been unified to support both positional and non-positional searches, with features such as cone and region searches, column selection, sorting, count-only queries, pagination (limit/offset), and advanced filtering.
Several legacy parameters and methods are deprecated, including version, pagesize, page, and HSC-specific helpers, in favor of the new, more general interface.
The CatalogCollection class represents a collection of catalogs. The Catalogs class uses an internal CatalogCollection object in both the discovery and query methods.

Testing and Documentation Updates:

The test data README now includes detailed instructions for generating new TAP-related test files, such as tap_collections.json, tap_catalogs.vot, tap_columns.vot, tap_capabilities.xml, and tap_results.vot, supporting the new catalog interface.
mast_catalog.rst is updated to reflect the new refactor.

Codecov Report

❌ Patch coverage is 97.47899% with 18 lines in your changes missing coverage. Please review.
✅ Project coverage is 73.96%. Comparing base (b0eb232) to head (d02f79f).
⚠️ Report is 22 commits behind head on main.

Files with missing lines	Patch %	Lines
astroquery/mast/collections.py	97.34%	13 Missing ⚠️
astroquery/mast/catalog_collection.py	97.72%	5 Missing ⚠️

Additional details and impacted files

@@            Coverage Diff             @@
##             main    #3582      +/-   ##
==========================================
+ Coverage   73.42%   73.96%   +0.53%     
==========================================
  Files         230      231       +1     
  Lines       21362    21849     +487     
==========================================
+ Hits        15686    16161     +475     
- Misses       5676     5688      +12

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@sedonaprice @taberger @cpparts

For your visibility! Any feedback is appreciated.

This is such a massive big PR that it will likely be only cleared after the next release is made (as there are other big PRs coming in well before this one that are all need to get though the finish line now)

@bsipocz Thanks, and well understood. When do you estimate a review to support an automated release could be made with these changes included? This has important functionality for Roman catalog support included in it, for some context.

There's no particular urgency in including this for the next milestone release, but interested in when could it be available as a --pre install version?

Yes, once this is merged there can be a dev release with it on pypi.

Updating docstrings, clarity

TAP URL constant, add comments Updating docstrings, don't set `available_collections` in method

Minor refactoring, more comments style Update default catalogs mapping name copilot comments Fixing collection names Update docstrings to be more explicit about region types fix style Add TODO about sky region classes

addressing comments from Sam uncommenting out line adjusting to new naming convention addressing more comments Starting off non-remote testing More test examples Style fixes to test_mast_remote Notes for non-remote tests

Adjusting from rebase Clear cache in non-remote tests

Catch up rebase

do not call network for default initializations of Catalogs

Avoid overflow errors updating tap_collections.json slight adjustments to parsing logic catalog tests typo correction addressing comments Some rebase fixes Rebase fix

Co-authored-by: Copilot <copilot@github.com>

Co-authored-by: Copilot <copilot@github.com> More doc fixes Co-authored-by: Copilot <copilot@github.com> Typos Co-authored-by: Copilot <copilot@github.com>

snbianco force-pushed the catalogs-main branch 5 times, most recently from 7d22eea to 481efb0 Compare April 28, 2026 17:32

snbianco added the mast label Apr 28, 2026

snbianco force-pushed the catalogs-main branch from 402deb0 to 947254a Compare April 28, 2026 18:53

snbianco marked this pull request as ready for review April 28, 2026 18:54

snbianco marked this pull request as draft April 28, 2026 19:06

snbianco marked this pull request as ready for review April 28, 2026 19:25

snbianco marked this pull request as draft April 30, 2026 17:29

snbianco marked this pull request as ready for review May 4, 2026 14:20

snbianco requested a review from bsipocz May 5, 2026 16:15

bsipocz added this to the 0.4.13 milestone May 6, 2026

snbianco force-pushed the catalogs-main branch 2 times, most recently from 28ca239 to 9aa7f66 Compare May 13, 2026 17:21

snbianco force-pushed the catalogs-main branch from 6f57ce2 to 501f444 Compare May 19, 2026 18:52

snbianco force-pushed the catalogs-main branch from 501f444 to ef21298 Compare June 1, 2026 16:18

snbianco force-pushed the catalogs-main branch from ef21298 to f778d44 Compare July 10, 2026 19:27

snbianco added 6 commits August 12, 2026 16:04

CatalogCollection class

0fc35a6

Updating docstrings, clarity

Discovery methods

5fefbb1

TAP URL constant, add comments Updating docstrings, don't set `available_collections` in method

Query methods and helpers

75966cb

Minor refactoring, more comments style Update default catalogs mapping name copilot comments Fixing collection names Update docstrings to be more explicit about region types fix style Add TODO about sky region classes

lazy loading, use queries instead of tables attribute

7a2cf18

docs

d00f9f1

Better handling for spatial query support

b4c27cc

cpparts and others added 15 commits August 12, 2026 16:04

initial catalog colleciton remote tests and bugfix

e3149bb

addressing comments from Sam uncommenting out line adjusting to new naming convention addressing more comments Starting off non-remote testing More test examples Style fixes to test_mast_remote Notes for non-remote tests

Add back in spatial check, add filters parameter for conflicting columns

58c5ba5

Update test data README

7b6dd59

Pagination

9e31a16

Adjusting from rebase Clear cache in non-remote tests

Deprecate objectname

b477edc

Catch up rebase

Adjusting for new database structure

59cc444

case insensitive filters, remote tests

a00e7fa

do not call network for default initializations of Catalogs

Time queries, styling

34c7fba

Avoid overflow errors updating tap_collections.json slight adjustments to parsing logic catalog tests typo correction addressing comments Some rebase fixes Rebase fix

Changelog

fc68b5c

Co-authored-by: Copilot <copilot@github.com>

Docs fixes, guards around regions import

0c3d1cd

Co-authored-by: Copilot <copilot@github.com> More doc fixes Co-authored-by: Copilot <copilot@github.com> Typos Co-authored-by: Copilot <copilot@github.com>

Make CatalogCollection private

2b1a505

Shared collections_cache

c814089

async queries, return ADQL only, docs updates

11fb7d9

Update deprecation version, note about installing older version

b21d82c

snbianco force-pushed the catalogs-main branch from f778d44 to b21d82c Compare August 12, 2026 20:05

Fix Gaia default catalog

d02f79f

MAST: New Catalogs module using VO-TAP by snbianco · Pull Request #3582 · astropy/astroquery · GitHub

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MAST: New Catalogs module using VO-TAP#3582
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