DeepShadows uses a convolutional neural networks (CNNs) to separate low-surface-brightness galaxies (LSBGs) from artifacts (such as Galactic cirrus and star-forming regions) in survey images. The model is trained and tested on labeled LSBGs and artifacts from the Dark Energy Survey and demonstrates that CNNs offer a promising path in the quest to study the low-surface-brightness universe.

easyaccess facilitates access to astronomical catalogs stored in SQL Databases. It is an enhanced command line interpreter and provides a custom interface with custom commands and was specifically designed to access data from the Dark Energy Survey Oracle database, including autocompletion of tables, columns, users and commands, simple ways to upload and download tables using csv, fits and HDF5 formats, iterators, search and description of tables among others. It can easily be extended to other surveys or SQL databases. The package is written in Python and supports customized addition of commands and functionalities.

DES exposure checker renders science-grade images directly to a web browser and allows users to mark problematic features from a set of predefined classes, thus allowing image quality control for the Dark Energy Survey to be crowdsourced through its web application. Users can also generate custom labels to help identify previously unknown problem classes; generated reports are fed back to hardware and software experts to help mitigate and eliminate recognized issues. These problem reports allow rapid correction of artifacts that otherwise may be too subtle or infrequent to be recognized.