iraf.net

The calculation of the separation between two celestial points is a standard astronomical utility. In SPP routines may be found in the math$slalib package. At the CL level there is astcalc and asthedit. However those are fairly complex and in scripts one would like to have a simple interface. People can write their own script code but I thought it would be useful to provide one. The SKYSEP help page is already available from this site, the script is in the body of the story and will be available in the upcoming release in the NPROTO package.

Mark Taylor has announced the release of TOPCAT V2.0. A full description of the many graphics upgrades is included in the announcement below, or the project web page. TOPCAT is a tabular data viewer and editor and one of the only projects to survive the Starlink shutdown. I'm a big fan and recommend it for your FITS bintables every bit as much as VOTable xml.

Machine	Bench Time
Dual 2.7Ghz G5, 2GB	31 sec (ppc bins)
17" Intel/iMac, 1GB	52 sec (ppc bins)
	21 sec (intel bins)

I got my hands on an Intel iMac recently and did some quick looking around and testing. The surprising news is that for the most part the existing PPC macosx binaries will run without change using the emulator! A statically linked DS9 also works, as do the X11IRAF tasks.

Update: (2/7/06) Initial port work is complete and native binaries are working. As a benchmark comparison using a script that does some real-world reductions consider the table here (YMMV): See below for other notes and updates as we get a chance to do more on this (borrowed) machine.....

CDS has announced the release of Aladin V3.5, details are available from here. This version features several new VO enhancements, see below for information from their announcement:

So I was sitting around trying to avoid real work and came across a "code visualization" project on the net. Seeing an opportunity to waste some time, I applied it to IRAF just to see what would happen. The result is interesting enough to post here, and might make for an interesting CD jacket one day. Various resolutions are available, anyone adventurous enough to work on this some more (i.e. add labels or apply some graphics design) please post your results or comments . Click on the image to see more.

The WIYN Mini-Mosaic WCS was incorrectly recorded with a 180 degree rotation for a couple of years. It has been fixed recently but for older data this can be easily fixed using MSCWCS in the MSCRED package.

Who thought you could do so much with CL scripts? WCSFixer is a new NVO application developed entirely in CL scripts but with a rich web interface. With the flip of a parameter these same scripts can be used in the CL on your desktop. This and other new services are being demonstrated this week at the NVO booth at the AAS (or see the NVO homepage.

The email address iraf@noao.edu is now officially dead, the auto-responder was enabled today informing people of the change and suggesting they come here. If you sent email look for the reply here, if you have a new question please post it here first. For a while, messages will be allowed to be forwarded where we'll reassign them into one of the forums for a reply, but eventually even that will end.

Several years ago it was necessary to compile a list of known IRAF software. After several days Googling we compiled a large list but unfortunately didn't think to save the URLs at the time. Not all packages are active or distributed by the authors, but may be what you're looking for. If interested, Google on the package/author name.

Here's the list, if you know of other packages please mention them in a comment, if you know of a URL to a package please consider adding a link.

From the Not Quite IRAF desk: A new version of the "Source Extractor for Dummies" user manual is now available. This version now includes 18 illustrations. See author's website for details.