gcfit.util.get_std_cluster_name

gcfit.util.get_std_cluster_name(name)

Convert a given cluster name to a standardized version.

Convert a given cluster name, in a variety of formats, to a standardized format, which can be used to find and access cluster data files.

A standardized format exists for three different common cluster catalogues:

• New General Catalogue: NGC####

  NGC, no spaces, 4 numbers, left padded by 0

• Palomar, PAL##

  PAL, no spaces, 2 numbers, left padded by 0

• Terzan, TER##

  TER, no spaces, 2 numbers, left padded by 0

Before being standardized, all whitespace, dashes and underscores are stripped from the name, and all letters are lowercased. A check for common cluster aliases is also made against COMMON_NAMES.

If not a part of these three catalogues, no standardization will be effected, and the exact same name will be returned.

Parameters:

namestr

Input cluster name to be standardized.

Returns:

str

Standardized cluster name.