PINT is a project to develop a new pulsar timing solution based on python and modern libraries. It is still in active development, but it can already produce residuals from most "normal" timing models that agree with Tempo and Tempo2 to within ~10 nanoseconds. It can be used within python scripts or notebooks, and there are several command line tools that come with it.
The primary reasons we are developing PINT are:
- To have a robust system to check high-precision timing results that is completely independent of TEMPO and Tempo2
- To make a system that is easy to extend and modify due to a good design and the use of a modern programming language, techniques, and libraries.
Currently PINT is not available via PyPI or Conda. To install it you must obtain the source from GitHub (for example by cloning it), then install it, ensuring that all dependencies needed to run PINT are available:
$ pip install .
Be aware that both PINT and AstroPy require data files from the Internet, for example the International Earth Rotation Service bulletins, which are regularly updated. These files are cached, where possible, so once they have been downloaded you should be able to use PINT and AstroPy offline unless you require new data (for example you request a time more recent than your IERS bulletin contains).
See the online documentation.