This table shows the modifications that needs to be done in parse_time to return Time objects instead of Datetime objects

parse_time_return.md

First importing import astropy.time as t

Input instances for time_string	Current working of parse_time	Proposed changes to return astropy.Time
astropy.Time	return time_string.datetime	return time_string
now	return datetime.utcnow()	return t.Time.now()
pandas.Timeseries	return time_string.to_pydatetime()	return t.Time(time_string)
isinstance(time_string, pandas.Series) and 'datetime64' in str(time_string.dtype)	return np.array([dt.to_pydatetime() for dt in time_string])	return np.array([t.Time(dt) for dt in time_string])
datetime	return time_string	return t.Time(time_string)
tuple	return datetime(*time_string)	if time = (2018,10,3,10,43,5,6) see code here
date	return datetime.combine(time_string, time())	return t.Time(datetime.combine(time_string, time()))
pandas.DatetimeIndex	return time_string._mpl_repr()	if time_string = DatetimeIndex(np.array([1,2,34])) return [t.Time(t[tim]) for tim in range(len(time_string))]
np.datetime64	return _parse_dt64(time_string)	return _parse_dt64_Time(time_string) with modified version of _parse_dt64 discussed later
date	return datetime.combine(time_string, time())	See Enhancement
time_format = utime and time_string = <int, float>	return datetime(1979, 1, 1) + timedelta(0, time_string)	See Enhancement