Structure-like object

I really like the structure variable in IDL. Especially the arrays of structure. It allows to search for elements using the where function and to extract a sub-structure matching a give condition.
I mean, if I have an dataset like this:
IDL> a = replicate({name:'',ra:0.0,dec:0.0},1000)
I can search for all the elements matching for exemple:
IDL> tt = where(a.ra gt 10. and abs(a.dec) gt 5.)
IDL> b = a[tt]


The same (more or less) can be made using numpy (imported as np):

a = np.zeros((1000,),dtype=[('name', str), ('ra', float), ('dec', float)])
tt = ((a['ra'] > 5.) & (abs(a['dec']) < 10.))
b = a[tt]

I don't really know if this is the best way. And also don't know how to access for example the second tag without naming it, like in IDL a.(1)...

I can also create an object:
class obs(object):
    def __init__(self,name='',ra=0.,dec=0.):
        self.name=name
        self.ra=ra
        self.dec=decAnd even define an array of objects:
colec = np.empty( (3,3), dtype=object)
And then put the objects in the colec:
colec[:,:] = obs()
BUT this will create a collection of 9 times the same object!!!
colec[0,0].ra = 5.5
colec[1,1].ra
>>>5.5
Some loop needed here. But the worst is that one will loose all the power of linear algebra from numpy.
So stay with the first approach for now.