iraf.net

BUG: When matching one spectrum to another, the reference spectrum, for some operation (e.g. arithmetic, combining, standard star calibration) the first spectrum is converted to its natural WCS units. If the reference spectrum is in different units the result will be wrong. This is rare but a particular case is when SPLOT displays a spectrum in some units, possibly set by the display units in the header or by the task parameter, and then a binary arithmetic operation is performed using a second spectrum. Even if the second spectrum has the same display units it may be resampled to match the reference spectrum in the wrong units. The code solution is to always resample in the current units of the reference spectrum.

The workaround for the SPLOT example is to use the ":units" command to put the initial spectrum into the natural units of the second spectrum. After the arithmetic you can changes the units back if desired.

STATUS: Fixed for a future release.

An IRAF Birds-of-a-Feather session has been scheduled at the upcoming ADASS meeting in Tucson, Oct 15-18. The abstract for the BoF is below and we invite everyone to attend. An agenda will be posted closer to the meeting time, however we plan to cover highlights of the last year, organize work for the coming year, and demonstrate some new work that will be available shortly. Please contact us if you would like to make a short presentation yourself or if there is something is particular interest you'd like to see on the agenda.

The talk "Integrating IRAF with the Virtual Observatory" is now available online.

Draft Agenda: IRAF Bof, 10/17, 17:30-19:00, Finger Rock II

1) Introduction
2) Pipeline Uses of IRAF
3) NVO Package Demonstration
4) Site Development/Community Participation
5) Discussion

Formal presentations will comprise only the 1st half of the meeting.

BUG: If the fitting axis is 2 (the identify/reidentify features are defined by cuts along the second axis) the y coordinate for the 2D fitting will be wrong. You will notice this if data are plotted with one axis being the y coordinate. The other way you would notice this is that the transformation won't correctly remove the distortions and make a correct wavelength solution.

The only workaround is to transpose the data early before doing the feature identification and tracing. Note that you must then also reset the physical WCS after the transpose with the command "wcsreset wcs=physical".

STATUS: Fixed for the next IRAFNET V2.13 release.

Registration is now open for the 16th annual conference on Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems (ADASS), to be held at the Westin La Paloma Resort and Spa in Tucson, Arizona, USA during 15-18 October 2006....The featured themes for this year's program are:

[Update June 6, 2006: Registration is now closed.]

Applications are now being accepted for the 2006 NVO Summer School to be held in Aspen, September 6-14. Application instructions and details are posted on the NVO website and below. The deadline for applications in June 5, notification of acceptance will be made by July 1.

BUG: The verbose output only prints information based for the last spectrum in a multispec file. When a single correction is being applied to all apertures this is correct but when different corrections are being generated for different apertures, say when adding a correction to apertures which had different initial corrections applied this can be concerning. The actual corrections are being applied correctly for each aperture but the verbose output may be misleading. There is no workaround though it is not a data calibration error just a logging error.

STATUS: To be fixed in a future release though no fix has yet been implemented.