Toyz was initially created as a way to view and interact with FITS images stored on a remote server, as well as perform data reduction needed for my PhD. I couldn't find any easy to use and well documented astronomy tools for this task so I set out to create my own application.

In a nutshell Toyz is a web application framework designed to meet the needs of "Big Data" scientists by allowing them to interact with their data via a web browser and run scripts on a remote server (or perhaps a gpu cluster) that stores their data. There are a few simple ideas that have been (and will continue to be) essential to the development of toyz (think of it as a mission statement): 1. It should be easy to install with as few dependencies as possible 2. It should take up a minimal amount of disk space 3. It should be well documented and easy to user 4. An undergraduate summer REU student should be able to start analyzing data with it on his/her first day!

See the documentation for information on installing and getting started with Toyz.

Click here for a short video demo.

Change the color mapping for FITS images

Open a data file from the server using python, numpy, or pandas (astropy in the future)

Interactive plots using Highcharts (custom js plot libraries can also be used)

With the Astro-Toyz package you can view surface plots, pixel distribution histograms, and WCS.

Custom web pages can be written to connect interactive plots to surface plots and images from different data sources

User settings in admin console

Toyz has been partially funded by NSF award AST-1313029.