soo today got to know that fits are very confusing, not just for me.. but for everybody. so, i have added a link to the MAST archive which is the OG place for finding astronomical data, right in the dashboard itself. people can search for stars with exoplanets or whatever they like and start examining the lightcurves!!! PRETYY COOL

For everybody:

There are multiple kinds of fits files but this project only deals with tpf (Target Pixel Files) and lightcurve files.

• TPF: a small image(s) of the target star with some of its neighbors. it is a collection of images taken periodically over time so that we can examine the changes in brightness of the star to detect for exoplanets.

• Lightcuves: These are just the metadata of the star’s brightness values corresponding with time, package again as….. you guessed it… fits. it does not contain any image. it is just the metadata.

basically, someone already did the thing for you! took the raw data of a star over time and just took the light and time values and saved them in a fits file. that is your lightcurve file. you can plot them with various styles and get the graphs. which again, takes a lot of time and has a high learning curve!

and… that entire process is what my project automates :)

EDIT: added support for more file formats. the project now supports .fits, .fit, .fz, .tpf, and .fits.gz files!!!