No doubt inspired by the success of this site, the SExtractor and SWarp mailing lists have been moved to a forum-based discussion. Not much content so far, but still a good place for all your TERAPIX questions. Details in the announcement below, direct link for the impatient is at http://terapix.iap.fr/forum.

[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.

NUMBER: 554
MODULE: dopcor
SYSTEM: V2.13
DATE: Tue May 23 16:11:05 MST 2006
FROM: valdes

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.

NUMBER: 553
MODULE: splot
SYSTEM: -V2.12.3
DATE: Tue May 16 11:08:14 MST 2006
FROM: valdes

BUG: If SPLOT is run more than once without flushing the process (flpr) then the default aperture will be that from the last execution. The consequence is that use of an image section to select an aperture in a multiaperture file may not display the intended spectrum. The workaround is to use the command "flpr" before using an image section.

STATUS: Fixed for the next release.

For quite a while now users have been running into problems associated with the ESO convention of using HIERARCH keywords in their headers. This became a common enough issue that we developed a script to help deal with it. That script never made it into the core system, but the explanatory text and script itself is posted here.

We are pleased to announce 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:

The V2.13 beta-release of the Mac/Intel port has been updated to now include a port to Cygwin under Windows XP SP2 as well as a number of minor bug fixes to the Mac/Intel port and back-ports to other platforms (Linux and OSX/ppc). Current beta users should update their systems using a complete install of the system, X11IRAF updates will follow shortly. Features are still planned and the final packaging has yet to be done, but this is a fully functional release of IRAF, X11IRAF, various external packages and DS9, all with native Mac/Intel and Cygwin binaries.

Please report any problems, bugs, or suggestions to the forum thread started on this topic. The beta may be updated occassionally if serious bugs are found or major new features added, and all users should update to the final release once it is ready. Detailed, if quick, release notes are in the body of the message. For the impatient, here is a link to the distribution directory.

(Update: 4/24/06) DS9 now linked to correct 4.0b9 macintel binary.
(Update 8/30/06) New native Mac/Intel and PPC binaries for X11IRAF now available from the downloads page
(Update 11/22/06) Updated Mac/Intel binaries for IRAF, updated external package builds, now available from the downloads page (Update Details)

Mark Taylor has announced the release of TOPCAT V2.1. This release features extensive support for the PLASTIC tool interoperability protocol and a new stacked line plot window. Further details on the project web page. TOPCAT is a tabular data viewer/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.

V6 of the Scisoft astronomy software collection CD/DVD from ESO is now available as a single DVD for Linux (FC3). The disc contents have also apparently made in onto the (non-ESO) OSX release, further updates likely throughout the year.

The Astronomy Tools and Applications Branch of the Space Telescope Science Institute wishes to announce the availability of version 3.5 of the Space Telescope Science Data Analysis Software (STSDAS). Concurrent with the STSDAS release, we have also released v3.5 of the TABLES external package.....

Changelog and download details in the body of the story.