Example function to initialize astropy.TimeDelta like datetime.timedelta

get_timedelta.py

from astropy.time import TimeDelta
import astropy.units as u


def get_timedelta(**kwargs):
    """Creates astropy.time.TimeDelta in the format of datetime.timedelta

    Parameters
    ----------
    days : int, float
    seconds : int, float
    microseconds : int, float
    milliseconds : int, float
    minutes : int, float
    hours : int, float
    weeks : int, float

    Returns
    -------
    astropy.time.TimeDelta

    """

    units = [u.day, u.second, u.microsecond, u.millisecond, u.minute, u.hour, u.week]
    data = [
        kwargs.get('days', 0),
        kwargs.get('seconds', 0),
        kwargs.get('microseconds', 0),
        kwargs.get('milliseconds', 0),
        kwargs.get('minutes', 0),
        kwargs.get('hours', 0),
        kwargs.get('weeks', 0),
    ]

    # Multiply each element of units with each element of data,
    # sum it up and return a TimeDelta
    return TimeDelta(sum(map(lambda x, y: x * y, units, data)))