astroquery.vizier : Got the same request output for two differents Gaia dr3 ids

[Sfosch]

Hi,

I am working with astroquery 0.4.11 and python 3.10.13 on win 10.
I am trying to obtain the characteristics of eclipsing binaries in the I/358/veb catalog via Vizier.
When I make a request on two different sources (separated by 48"), I obtain the same output twice.

from astroquery.vizier import Vizier
vizier = Vizier()
vizier.ROW_LIMIT = -1

vizier.query_object(['Gaia DR3 5842080147428206848'],catalog='I/358/veb')

       Source             SolID        ...     RA_ICRS         DE_ICRS    
      deg             deg      
       int64              int64        ...     float64         float64    
------------------- ------------------ ... --------------- ---------------
5842080147428206848 375316653866487564 ... 190.56184164609 -72.18392576177
5842080903342462336 375316653866487564 ... 190.57528865037 -72.17043066442

vizier.query_object(['Gaia DR3 5842080903342462336'],catalog='I/358/veb')

       Source             SolID        ...     RA_ICRS         DE_ICRS    
      deg             deg      
       int64              int64        ...     float64         float64    
------------------- ------------------ ... --------------- ---------------
5842080147428206848 375316653866487564 ... 190.56184164609 -72.18392576177
5842080903342462336 375316653866487564 ... 190.57528865037 -72.17043066442

In the second request, the source I asked for is in the second row...
This is weird, right? Shouldn't we have one row if we request one source?

Those two sources are not an isolate case.
On a list of 90 sources, 17% of the requests give doubled results as above.
Is it a misuse from me? (I cleared the cache)

I don't have this issue when I use Vizier's website directly but I would like to keep using astroquery.

Thank you,
Sacha

[keflavich]

The sources have the same SolID - is it possible they are the same source somehow? But if you're getting different results from the online interface, it seems like a real problem.

[ManonMarchand]

Hello,

The way the query_object works is that it will resolve the name into coordinates and then search in a tiny area around the coordinates it got.

You can change the default radius with:

from astroquery.vizier import Vizier
from astropy.coordinates import Angle
vizier = Vizier()
vizier.ROW_LIMIT = -1
vizier.query_object(['Gaia DR3 5842080147428206848'],catalog='I/358/veb', radius=Angle(15, "arcsec"))

<Table length=1>
       Source             SolID            Rank    ...    DepthE2        RA_ICRS         DE_ICRS    
                                                   ...      mag            deg             deg      
       int64              int64          float64   ...    float64        float64         float64    
------------------- ------------------ ----------- ... ------------- --------------- ---------------
5842080147428206848 375316653866487564  0.58624756 ...       0.47156 190.56184164609 -72.18392576177

I wouldn't rely on this though, as the radius to be applied depends on the density of the catalog.

Something like

Vizier(column_filters={'Source': '==5842080147428206848'}).get_catalogs('I/358/veb')

will give you more reliable results, I think.

[keflavich]

Good catch @ManonMarchand. I think this has been a pretty intuitive part of the astroquery interface for most users most of the time, but I can see how it is confusing here. I don't think we need to take any actions - the documentation and your example show how to handle this - but we should keep an eye on whether there are ways to better convey this information to users.

[ManonMarchand]

Yes, I just re-read the narrative doc and the docstring of query_object and it's not so clear. Let's keep this open and flag this as a documentation issue.

[Sfosch]

Hi (sorry, I didn't mean to close it)

Thank you both for your answers.
I understood that query_object should be used for specific objects and not a kind of cone search around an object.

What is the default radius used in query_object?

I will use your solution, thank you.

[ManonMarchand]

It's 2 arcmin by default (like on the webpages). We should also add this is the docs ^^'