Installing Lightkurve#

Using pip#

The easiest way to install Lightkurve and all of its dependencies is to use the pip command, which is a standard part of all Python distributions. To install Lightkurve, run the following command in a terminal window:

$ python -m pip install lightkurve --upgrade

The --upgrade flag is optional, but recommended if you already have Lightkurve installed and want to upgrade to the latest version.

Depending on the specific Python environment, you may need to replace python with the correct Python interpreter, e.g., python3.

Note

If you encounter a PermissionError this means that you do not have the required administrative access to install new packages to your Python installation. In this case you may consider using the --user option to install the package into your home directory. You can read more about how to do this in the pip documentation.

To verify which version of Lightkurve you have installed, run:

$ python -c "import lightkurve; print(lightkurve.__version__)"

Requirements#

Lightkurve requires the following packages:

  • Astropy

  • Numpy

  • Scipy

  • Matplotlib

  • Astroquery

  • Bokeh (for interactive widgets).

  • Pandas.

If you install Lightkurve using pip as explained above, these dependencies will be installed automatically if needed.

Refer to [tool.poetry.dependencies] section of pyproject.toml for the minimum versions of the packages required.

Installing the development version#

If you want to experiment with the latest development version of Lightkurve, you can install it straight from the main branch on GitHub:

$ git clone https://github.com/lightkurve/lightkurve.git
$ cd lightkurve
$ python -m pip install .

If you want to have a so-called editable install which enables the installed version to immediately reflect changes made in the source tree, you can use:

$ python -m pip install poetry
$ poetry install

Please see our guide on Installing the development environment for additional instructions.