def data_frame_to_astropy_table (dataframe):
    """This is a backport of the Astropy method
   :meth:`astropy.table.table.Table.from_pandas`. It converts a Pandas
   :class:`pandas.DataFrame` object to an Astropy
   :class:`astropy.table.Table`.

    """
    from astropy.utils import OrderedDict
    from astropy.table import Table, Column, MaskedColumn
    from astropy.extern import six

    out = OrderedDict()

    for name in dataframe.columns:
        column = dataframe[name]
        mask = np.array (column.isnull ())
        data = np.array (column)

        if data.dtype.kind == 'O':
            # If all elements of an object array are string-like or np.nan
            # then coerce back to a native numpy str/unicode array.
            string_types = six.string_types
            if six.PY3:
                string_types += (bytes,)
            nan = np.nan
            if all(isinstance(x, string_types) or x is nan for x in data):
                # Force any missing (null) values to b''.  Numpy will
                # upcast to str/unicode as needed.
                data[mask] = b''

                # When the numpy object array is represented as a list then
                # numpy initializes to the correct string or unicode type.
                data = np.array([x for x in data])

        if np.any(mask):
            out[name] = MaskedColumn(data=data, name=name, mask=mask)
        else:
            out[name] = Column(data=data, name=name)

    return Table(out)