ESO: `authenticated` not enabled by default after login for queries

[vandalt]

Hi! I have been testing the updated ESO implementation based on TAP query now that #3339 has been merged.

Everything is working great so far, but I had one hiccup with authentication: after logging with Eso.login(), TAP queries are not authenticated by default since the authenticated keyword argument to query_instrument() and query_main() is False by default. This is not a bug, but I found it somewhat unexpected. I was wondering if a note about this could be added in the documentation, and/or if the default behaviour could be changed to authenticated=True when the user is logged in.

Happy to submit a docs and/or code PR depending on the preferred fix.

Thank you!

Here is a snippet to reproduce:

eso = Eso()
eso.ROW_LIMIT = None
eso.login(username="APERO")
# Some files are missing without `authenticated=True`
files_tbl = eso.query_instrument("nirps", authenticated=True)

[bsipocz]

cc @juanmcloaiza

[juanmcloaiza]

Hi @vandalt, thanks for your feedback. It is indeed not clear that one needs the authenticated=True argument to download data as authenticated user. We have discussed internally and the way to proceed, at least for the moment, is to keep the default authenticated=False, since running authenticated queries by default makes the process much slower every time, even when you only need publicly available data.

I am trying to update the documentation with your suggestions in PR #3477, but I don't manage to build the docs neither locally nor in the astropy CI-CD. The process hangs forever. @bsipocz , is this a common/known problem?

[bsipocz]

I am trying to update the documentation with your suggestions in PR #3477, but I don't manage to build the docs neither locally nor in the astropy CI-CD. The process hangs forever. @bsipocz , is this a common/known problem?

Yes, there was a known issue with sphinx9 compatibility, I have merged a PR earlier today which fixed it.