Pre-factor to simplify hats loading

benchmarks/benchmarks.py

@@ -22,15 +22,15 @@
 
 
 def load_small_sky():
-    return lsdb.read_hats(TEST_DIR / DATA_DIR_NAME / SMALL_SKY_DIR_NAME, catalog_type=lsdb.Catalog)
+    return lsdb.read_hats(TEST_DIR / DATA_DIR_NAME / SMALL_SKY_DIR_NAME)
 
 
 def load_small_sky_order1():
-    return lsdb.read_hats(TEST_DIR / DATA_DIR_NAME / SMALL_SKY_ORDER1, catalog_type=lsdb.Catalog)
+    return lsdb.read_hats(TEST_DIR / DATA_DIR_NAME / SMALL_SKY_ORDER1)
 
 
 def load_small_sky_xmatch():
-    return lsdb.read_hats(TEST_DIR / DATA_DIR_NAME / SMALL_SKY_XMATCH_NAME, catalog_type=lsdb.Catalog)
+    return lsdb.read_hats(TEST_DIR / DATA_DIR_NAME / SMALL_SKY_XMATCH_NAME)
 
 
 def time_kdtree_crossmatch():

src/lsdb/loaders/hats/hats_loading_config.py

@@ -65,3 +65,10 @@ def make_query_url_params(self) -> dict:
                 url_params["filters"].append(f"{filtr[0]}{filtr[1]}{filtr[2]}")
 
         return url_params
+
+    def get_read_kwargs(self):
+        """Clumps existing kwargs and `dtype_backend`, if specified."""
+        kwargs = dict(self.kwargs)
+        if self.dtype_backend is not None:
+            kwargs["dtype_backend"] = self.dtype_backend
+        return kwargs