Data Listings

This page contains a listing of all data products served by Pitt-Google Alert Broker and includes the connection information needed for access.

All data is served through public data repositories in Google Cloud. Pitt-Google’s Google Cloud project ID, which will be needed for access, is:

# Pitt-Google's Google Cloud project ID
ardent-cycling-243415

For examples of how to use the information on this page, please see our API Reference and User Demos repo.

Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF)

ZTF is a wide-field, optical survey producing an alert stream at a rate of 10^5 - 10^6 per night.

Pub/Sub Alert Streams

Topic	Description
*Data Streams*
ztf-alerts	ZTF alert stream in Pub/Sub, cleaned of duplicate alerts. Messages contain the original alert bytes and metadata.
ztf-lite	Lite version of ztf-alerts (every alert, subset of fields).
ztf-tagged	ztf-lite with basic categorizations such as “is pure” and “is likely extragalactic transient” added to the message metadata to aid filtering.
ztf-SuperNNova	ztf-tagged plus SuperNNova classification results (Ia vs non-Ia).
*Notification Streams*
ztf-alert_avros	One message per alert indicating that the Avro file is available in a Cloud Storage bucket. The file and bucket names are in the message attributes. Messages contain no data.
*Testing Stream*
ztf-loop	Recent messages from the ztf-alerts stream, published at a rate of 1 per second. This stream is intended for testing and development use cases.

BigQuery Tables

Dataset	Table	Description
ztf	alerts_v4_02	Alert data for ZTF schema version 4.02. This table is an archive of the ztf-alerts Pub/Sub stream, excluding image cutouts and metadata. It has the same schema as the original alert bytes (except cutouts), including nested and repeated fields. Equivalent tables exist for previous schema versions: alerts_v3_3, alerts_v3_1, alerts_v3_0, alerts_v1_8.
ztf	SuperNNova	Results from a SuperNNova (Möller & de Boissière, 2019) Type Ia supernova classification (binary).

Cloud Storage Buckets

Bucket	Description
ardent-cycling-243415-ztf_alerts_v4_02	Alert data for ZTF schema version 4.02. This bucket is an Avro file archive of the ztf-alerts Pub/Sub stream, including image cutouts and metadata. Each alert is stored as a separate Avro file. The filename syntax is: <ztf_topic>/<objectId>/<candid>.avro. Equivalent buckets exist for previous schema versions: v3_3, v3_1, v3_0, v1_8.

LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK)

LVK is a gravitational wave collaboration producing an alert stream at a rate of 50 - 100 per day.

Pub/Sub Alert Streams

Topic	Description
*Data Streams*
lvk-alerts	LVK alert stream in Pub/Sub. Messages contain the original alert bytes and metadata.

BigQuery Tables

Dataset	Table	Description
lvk	alerts_v1_0	Alert data from the LVK O4 observing run. This table is an archive of the lvk-alerts Pub/Sub stream. It has the same schema as the original alert bytes, including nested and repeated fields.

Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST)

LSST is an upcoming wide-field, optical survey that is currently in the commissioning phase and producing an alert stream that is suitable for testing and development. LSST is expected to produce on average 10^7 alerts per night.

Pub/Sub Alert Streams

Topic	Description
*Data Streams*
lsst-alerts-simulated	Avro serialized LSST alert stream in Pub/Sub, cleaned of duplicate alerts. Messages contain the original alert bytes and metadata.
lsst-alerts-json-simulated	JSON-serialized LSST alert stream in Pub/Sub, cleaned of duplicate alerts. Non-JSON-serializable values in the original alert data are converted into representations that can be safely serialized to JSON (e.g., `NaN → None`, `bytes →` UTF-8 base64-encoded strings).
lsst-lite-simulated	Lite version of lsst-alerts (every alert, subset of fields).
lsst-upsilon-simulated	lsst-lite plus UPSILoN’s (Kim & Bailer-Jones, 2015) multi-class classification results (e.g., RR Lyrae, Cepheid, Type II Cepheid, Delta Scuti star, eclipsing binary, long-period variable, etc.). Messages published to this topic contain the attributes: pg_upsilon_x_label and pg_upsilon_x_flag where “x” is either “u”, “g”, “r”, “i”, “z”, or “y” (e.g., pg_upsilon_u_label; pg_upsilon_u_flag).
lsst-variability-simulated	lsst-lite plus Stetson J indices for each band used to observe the diaObject associated with an alert. Messages published to this topic contain the attribute: pg_variable. The value of this Pub/Sub message attribute is set to “likely” if the alert has a Stetson J index of at least 20 and at least 30 detections in the g, r, or u band. The default value is “unlikely”.
lsst-supernnova-simulated	lsst-lite plus SuperNNova classification results (Ia vs non-Ia).

BigQuery Tables

Dataset	Table	Description
lsst_simulated	alerts_v9_0	Simulated alert data for LSST schema version 9.0. This table is an archive of the lsst-alerts-simulated Pub/Sub stream, excluding image cutouts and metadata. It has the same schema as the original alert bytes (except cutouts), including nested and repeated fields. The fields kafkaPublishTimestamp and healpix9, healpix19, and healpix29 are included to support time-based partitioning and spatial clustering, respectively.
lsst_simulated	upsilon	Results from UPSILoN’s (Kim & Bailer-Jones, 2015) multi-class classification results (e.g., RR Lyrae, Cepheid, Type II Cepheid, Delta Scuti star, eclipsing binary, long-period variable, etc.). Contains the predicted label (i.e., class), the probability of the predicted label, and a flag value: 0 (successful classification), 1 (suspicious classification because the period is in period alias or the period SNR is lower than 20) for each band used to observe the diaObject associated with an alert. The field kafkaPublishTimestamp is included to support time-based partitioning.
lsst_simulated	variability	Results from the lsst-variability-simulated module. This table contains Stetson J indices and the number of detections (i.e., data points) for each band used to observe the diaObject associated with an alert. The field kafkaPublishTimestamp is included to support time-based partitioning.
lsst_simulated	supernnova	Results from a SuperNNova (Möller & de Boissière, 2019) Type Ia supernova classification (binary). The field kafkaPublishTimestamp is included to support time-based partitioning.

Cloud Storage Buckets

Bucket

Description

ardent-cycling-243415-lsst_alerts-simulated

Simulated alert data for LSST. This bucket is an Avro file archive of the lsst-alerts-simulated Pub/Sub stream, including image cutouts and metadata. Each alert is stored as a separate Avro file. The filename syntax is: <schema_version>/kafkaPublishTimestamp=<kafka_timestamp>/<objectid_key>=<objectid>/<sourceid_key>=<sourceid>.avro. DIA Object example: v9_0/kafkaPublishTimestamp=2026-10-01/diaObjectId=3516505565058564097/diaSourceId=3527242976319242284.avro. Solar System Object example: v9_0/kafkaPublishTimestamp=2026-10-01/ssObjectId=3516505565058564097/diaSourceId=3527242976319242284.avro.