Create animation of SN discoveries across the sky

This code retrieves supernova data from the Open Supernova Catalog using the Open Astronomy Catalog API and plots the sky locations of supernovae over time from 1885 to the present. A series of plots (135 PNGs) are generated in the current directory, after which I use ImageMagick to compile them into a GIF animation.

Requirements

• numpy
• pandas
• astropy
• matplotlib

The Python script itself does not require ImageMagick. However, I use ImageMagick's convert command to create the final GIF animation by typing the following into the command line:

convert -delay 30 -loop 0 SN_*.png SN_Discoveries.gif

This creates an infinite loop GIF animation with a delay of 30/100 of a second between each frame.

This code is based in part on code written by RCThomas.