iraf.net

Folks:Attached Email (which I kept anonymous) suggests that IRAF is slated to become
unsupported or disappear within a year. Is this true?If so, this would be a decision with very bad consequences. IRAF is the core of
the freely available image processing system for astronomers, and is the
platform we have developed all our image processing scripts around in the last
two decades, and so have many many other groups (as funded by NSF or NASA).My group at ASU doesn't ask for, nor gets a whole lot of observing time at
NOAO. One of NOAO's main roles in the community is developing and supporting
IRAF. I believe this is true for many other groups who have access to
telescopes other than NOAO's.Please do not let IRAF bite the dust! It is more loved and appreciated than
you may be aware of, and it is certainly direly needed in the community.I hope that you will take our very serious concerns in this matter at heart.Thank you very much.Rogier A. Windhorst Tel: 1 480 965 7143 or 480 965 3561
Professor of Astronomy FAX: 480 965 7954 E: Rogier.Windhorst@asu.edu
JWST Interdisciplinary Scientist www.jwst.nasa.gov or www.stsci.edu/jwst
Dept. of Physics & Astronomy ast.asu.edu/directory/facultydir.asp
Arizona State University www.asu.edu/clas/hst/www/midUV.html
Street: Tyler Mall PSF-470 http://hubblesite.org/news/2004/28
P.O. Box 871504 http://hubblesite.org/news/2001/04
Tempe, AZ 85287-1504, USA http://hubblesite.org/news/1996/29==============================================================================Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 16:15:09 -0500
To: Rogier.Windhorst@asu.edu
Subject: IRAFIn case you haven't gotten this word, I'm circulating the following on the
Usenet sci.astro.research group:Several previous posts indicate that readers of s.a.r. include a fair number
of IRAF users. I have become aware that an internal NOAO memo is suggesting
that they will discontinue support and development of IRAF within the year. I
feel that this is a profoundly bad decision, since the use of IRAF for reduction
and analysis (imperfect as the system may be, which I sort of know after using
it for 20 years...) has had a much broader community impact than the telescopes
NOAO operates, while no functional replacement is under discussion. This seems
a waste of the large investment in its development, one that will require a lot
of effort from somewhere to make good for other packages, even if we were to
switch everything to IDL or MIDAS or... And the proposed personnel savings are
minor.Those with comments may want to make them known to the NOAO management or even
the NSF astronomy directorate. I'm certainly spending some time working on my
phrasing for such comments.

Hello Rogier,
Thanks for your words (and actions) of support! As we in the IRAF
group have been recently reminded, this was not our decision to make
and so I'm forwarding your message to those who did decide in hopes it will
help change. An announcement, comment, or now, response to the community
should be forthcoming.Regards,
Mike Fitzpatrick

>From Rolf.Jansen@asu.edu Wed Jun 22 15:11:35 2005
Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 15:10:45 -0700 (MST)
From: "Rolf A. Jansen" <Rolf.Jansen@asu.edu>
Subject: Re: IRAF to disappear?
To: Mike Fitzpatrick <fitz@noao.edu>
Cc: "Rolf A. Jansen" <rjansen@asu.edu>Dear Mike,I would hereby also like to voice my strong desire for a long-range
continued support and continued development of IRAF by NOAO, and my
appreciation of your past and present efforts.Most all of my image- and spectroscopic data reduction and analysis is
dependent on IRAF and the large body of IRAF CL scripts I wrote for
everything that is not already built-in. This includes my external
layered packages of scripts -- in particular 'rjtools', which is
publicly available at
http://www.public.asu.edu/~rjansen/iraf/rjtools.htmlI also use IRAF almost exclusively in my instruction of students'
research projects at ASU that involve data reduction and analysis.Upon looking at the beta version of the Error Handling CL at
ftp://iraf.noao.edu/pub/ecl.readme , I would certainly hope that its
development doesn't stop at the beta version but has a bright
NOAO-funded and supported future.Please feel free to forward this e-mail to any appropriate channels
within and outside of the IRAF group, wherever it might have some
positive effect.Kind regards,Rolf.------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Dr. Rolf A. Jansen Assistant Research Scientist |
| |
| Dept. of Physics & Astronomy tel: (+1)480 727 7119 |
| Arizona State University fax: (+1)480 965 7954 |
| Tyler Mall PSF-470 email: Rolf.Jansen@asu.edu |
| P.O. Box 871504 URL: www.public.asu.edu/~rjansen |
| TEMPE AZ 85287-1504 |
`------------------------------------------------------------------------'

Hi Rolf,
Thanks for your concern and support. I'm confident Rogier is
helping keep you informed, I've passed your message on to NOAO management
so it isn't overlooked.Cheers,
Mike Fitzpatrick

Folks:Attached Email (which I kept anonymous) suggests that IRAF is slated to become
unsupported or disappear within a year. Is this true?If so, this would be a decision with very bad consequences. IRAF is the core of
the freely available image processing system for astronomers, and is the
platform we have developed all our image processing scripts around in the last
two decades, and so have many many other groups (as funded by NSF or NASA).My group at ASU doesn't ask for, nor gets a whole lot of observing time at
NOAO. One of NOAO's main roles in the community is developing and supporting
IRAF. I believe this is true for many other groups who have access to
telescopes other than NOAO's.Please do not let IRAF bite the dust! It is more loved and appreciated than
you may be aware of, and it is certainly direly needed in the community.I hope that you will take our very serious concerns in this matter at heart.Thank you very much.Rogier A. Windhorst Tel: 1 480 965 7143 or 480 965 3561
Professor of Astronomy FAX: 480 965 7954 E: Rogier.Windhorst@asu.edu
JWST Interdisciplinary Scientist www.jwst.nasa.gov or www.stsci.edu/jwst
Dept. of Physics & Astronomy ast.asu.edu/directory/facultydir.asp
Arizona State University www.asu.edu/clas/hst/www/midUV.html
Street: Tyler Mall PSF-470 http://hubblesite.org/news/2004/28
P.O. Box 871504 http://hubblesite.org/news/2001/04
Tempe, AZ 85287-1504, USA http://hubblesite.org/news/1996/29==============================================================================Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 16:15:09 -0500
To: Rogier.Windhorst@asu.edu
Subject: IRAFIn case you haven't gotten this word, I'm circulating the following on the
Usenet sci.astro.research group:Several previous posts indicate that readers of s.a.r. include a fair number
of IRAF users. I have become aware that an internal NOAO memo is suggesting
that they will discontinue support and development of IRAF within the year. I
feel that this is a profoundly bad decision, since the use of IRAF for reduction
and analysis (imperfect as the system may be, which I sort of know after using
it for 20 years...) has had a much broader community impact than the telescopes
NOAO operates, while no functional replacement is under discussion. This seems
a waste of the large investment in its development, one that will require a lot
of effort from somewhere to make good for other packages, even if we were to
switch everything to IDL or MIDAS or... And the proposed personnel savings are
minor.Those with comments may want to make them known to the NOAO management or even
the NSF astronomy directorate. I'm certainly spending some time working on my
phrasing for such comments.

Hello Rogier,
Thanks for your words (and actions) of support! As we in the IRAF
group have been recently reminded, this was not our decision to make
and so I'm forwarding your message to those who did decide in hopes it will
help change. An announcement, comment, or now, response to the community
should be forthcoming.Regards,
Mike Fitzpatrick

>From Rolf.Jansen@asu.edu Wed Jun 22 15:11:35 2005
Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 15:10:45 -0700 (MST)
From: "Rolf A. Jansen" <Rolf.Jansen@asu.edu>
Subject: Re: IRAF to disappear?
To: Mike Fitzpatrick <fitz@noao.edu>
Cc: "Rolf A. Jansen" <rjansen@asu.edu>Dear Mike,I would hereby also like to voice my strong desire for a long-range
continued support and continued development of IRAF by NOAO, and my
appreciation of your past and present efforts.Most all of my image- and spectroscopic data reduction and analysis is
dependent on IRAF and the large body of IRAF CL scripts I wrote for
everything that is not already built-in. This includes my external
layered packages of scripts -- in particular 'rjtools', which is
publicly available at
http://www.public.asu.edu/~rjansen/iraf/rjtools.htmlI also use IRAF almost exclusively in my instruction of students'
research projects at ASU that involve data reduction and analysis.Upon looking at the beta version of the Error Handling CL at
ftp://iraf.noao.edu/pub/ecl.readme , I would certainly hope that its
development doesn't stop at the beta version but has a bright
NOAO-funded and supported future.Please feel free to forward this e-mail to any appropriate channels
within and outside of the IRAF group, wherever it might have some
positive effect.Kind regards,Rolf.------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Dr. Rolf A. Jansen Assistant Research Scientist |
| |
| Dept. of Physics & Astronomy tel: (+1)480 727 7119 |
| Arizona State University fax: (+1)480 965 7954 |
| Tyler Mall PSF-470 email: Rolf.Jansen@asu.edu |
| P.O. Box 871504 URL: www.public.asu.edu/~rjansen |
| TEMPE AZ 85287-1504 |
`------------------------------------------------------------------------'

Hi Rolf,
Thanks for your concern and support. I'm confident Rogier is
helping keep you informed, I've passed your message on to NOAO management
so it isn't overlooked.Cheers,
Mike Fitzpatrick