In the past, I’ve used the mast.stsci.edu portal.to search for and download TESS flux LCs. More recently, however, they appear to have changed the download process. They provide scripts containing UNIX command lines in files with .sh extensions. The files contain cURL commands that don’t work on my Windows 7 computer. So far I haven’t been able to find software that will handle these scripts on a Windows 7 system. Anyone have any experience with this?
I just tried MAST Portal with pi Men (TIC 261136679). Download appears to only work for the rows with the timeseries viewer icon:
It’s probably a bug that should be reported to MAST.
Anyway, alternatives:
- TESS Playground (can be thought as a lightweight MAST Portal that tends to be faster)
- Lightkurve docs — Lightkurve (Python)
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I’m not familiar with TESS and MAST, so let me answer just this question:
This (running *.sh scripts) can be done using Cygwin (https://www.cygwin.com/).
Alternatively you can install curl for Windows and port those scripts to Windows *.cmd scripts (it requires some basic knowledge of both Linux shell and Windows command interpreter)
One more alternative (suggested at MAST home page) is using Astroquery (MAST Queries (astroquery.mast) — astroquery v0.4.11.dev232). That requires basic Python skills.
Regards,
Dmitry
I use Peranso for TESS light curves downloading. It works fine, but possibilities are limited. There are a lot of data, inaccessible for Peranso’s requests. I tried to get more info from MAST website directly, but unsuccessful.
I will be deeply appreciate for step-by-step instruction on TESS LCs downloading without owful gigabytes of sector’s archives, if possible 
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Thanks for your response. I had to laugh. When I searched for TESS playground, I got listings for children’s playground structures. I have not been able to install Cygwin, I haven’t tried Python yet.
Allen
TESS Playground is a web app by Christopher Burke. If you somehow did not get the correct link on the post, copy and paste the following:
https://eta-earth.org/tess_play.html
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Those are the rows that I usually download - they yield .lc (lightcurve) files from both TESS SPOC and QLP products. If these are the files researchers need, they seem to work as they always have. The light curves open in VStar if the relevant plugins are installed.
Roy
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Mikhail,
Email me at royaxelsen7@gmail.com and I will send you the procedure I use. It targets individual stars (one star for each MAST Portal search) and yields light curve files accessible by VStar via the relevant plugins.
It still works despite the discussion in this thread.
Roy
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If the timeseries viewer icon is present, the download is simple with just a click. I want to download data that does not have the icon. For those files, I can download the .sh script files. These contain hundreds of cURL command lines that are intended for use on a UNIX or LINUX terminal window. I think these can also be used in a Windows 10 or 11 cmd window. I can access a Windows 10 system remotely, and I’m going to try using that.
Yes, and Peranso downloads exactly these data. The question is other one
git bash for Windows also has curl installed and is fairly fast to install.
David
David, I looked, but the GIT for windows download will not work on a Windows 7 system.
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Note that Peranso 3.1.0.0 was released a few weeks ago and now provides enhanced TESS support. Earlier versions already allowed to display TESS short cadence and long cadence LCF (Light Curve Files) for detailed light curve analysis.
Peranso 3.1.0.0 now also supports TESS Full Frame Images (FFI). LCF are pre-processed time-series photometry files, where the photometric measurements have already been performed by TESS. In contrast, FFI are raw or calibrated images that cover the full TESS CCD frame. With this update, Peranso now includes a proprietary photometry module to download, process, and extract light curve data from FFI images.
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Tonny,
I think we have discussed this before. Will the new version of Peranso run on a Windows 7 system?
Allen
Hi Allen,
Not sure, to be honest, as the vast majority of Peranso users are using Win 10 or Win 11. But you can try it for free. Just download the software and give it a try.
Good luck!
Tonny
Do you mean, Peranso should analyse images, but not use photometry data??? 
No, what I mean is that specific for TESS, observations are available in two formats:
Light Curve Files (LCF): These are pre-processed light curves. Peranso downloads them directly from MAST and displays the light curve in an Observations Window.
Full Frame Images (FFI): These are raw FITS images. In this case, Peranso automatically downloads the images, performs photometric analysis to extract the light curve, and then displays it in an Observations Window. This process is more computationally intensive, as it involves handling large image files, but it is fully automated in Peranso.
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Thank you for the explanation! So one can’t avoid of incredible GB of raw images…
FFI images indeed need to be downloaded and processed, after which Peranso removes them from your harddrive. Depending on the amount of TESS FFI observations requested, the volume of FITS data to be downloaded overall is reasonable.With LCF files, no image download at all is needed.
Tonny, Peranso V3.1.0.2 does work on my Windows 7 system. The web download is a really nice feature but it will only download data for stars that have the LC view icon on the STScI-MAST site. My older version (V3.0.3.5) appears to have the web downloading feature as well, but I have not tested it yet. By the way, Tonny, I had previously tried Phoranso, but it did not work on my Windows 7 system,