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hi there, I posted a topic a couple weeks ago with a pretty vague (sorry) question regarding setairmass and the psf. The subject title was "Psf and Setairmass," so the original thread is there. I havent got another response, so i thought i'd create a new topic.
here is a more detailed description of my psf problem:By "psf file" I did mean the task parameter file. I did epar psf and set all the appropriate fields, including showplots = no. Then I entered ":g" which ran the task and took me into the DS9 screen with a circular star selector cursor. I selected a few stars, and although showplots was set to "no", each time the mesh plot popped up anyway. whether I closed the plot window or just clicked back on DS9 and let the plot screen (tektroniks terminal) go into the background i had the following problem: when I am done selecting stars and want to exit and write the output file, I typed :wq in the cl terminal as per Phil Masseys crowded field photometry guide. This is not working. If the plot screens have been closed, the error "unknown command" appears on the cl terminal. If the plots are still open, the same error appears written over the top of the plots in the tektroniks terminal.
This is what i meant by the program being "confused" between the tektronics and cl terminals. I dont think it is ACTUALLY closing the tektronics terminal when i click the close button on the plots. Rather than my :wq command going to the cl terminal's psf task, it seems like it might be going to the tektronics terminal, where one might normally use commands to rotate the view of the plot, etc. When tektronics sees ":wq" it doesnt recognize it, thus the error message. Just wondering if anyone has had a similar problem, or knows what causes it and how to fix it.
Thanks a lot
-Pat Brown

Pat,Could you be more specific about where you're reading the instructions in the Massey doc? The ":wq" is a way to write-and-quit from the EPAR parameter editor and isn't a command in the task itself (which should have been started with the ":go"). One thing to try is to epar the task and ":wq" to save the parameters, then just run the task from the commandline. You might first UNLEARN the task params or do a MKIRAF in say /tmp so you start from a fresh login and avoid any corrupted parameter files in your uparm directory. Note that copying uparm files between machines, or logging in through another user's account sometimes means you can't actually write out the parameters and so you end up with the defaults (showplots=yes in this case, which sounds like a more reasonable explanation).-Mike

I've found that there is a difference between what showplot does and what the documentation says it does.What the documentation says it does:
Allows the user to choose whether the graphics window will pop up with a plot of the selected PSF star in interactive mode.What showplots actually does:
Allows the user to chose whether the graphics window will pop up with a plot of each the previously-selected stars from the .pst file you selected before starting interactive mode. If disabled, IRAF will simply read them all in.