A public beta-test version of IRAF V2.11 was released at the end of June, followed by the fully tested EXPORT release in late August. A coordinated release of STSDAS, including data reduction support for the new STIS and NICMOS instruments on HST, was made available by STScI in September (this requires IRAF V2.11). Detailed notes for this release are available on the Web at http://iraf.noao.edu/v211revs.html. A summary of the major features of the release was also given in the last issue of this Newsletter. Highlights of the IRAF V2.11 release include many enhancements to online image data structures including a new FITS image kernel and a new machine independent ".imh" image format, major enhancements to the IMAGES package, incorporation of the latest versions of all the science packages, larger system buffer sizes throughout the system including support for longer file names and file pathnames, and updates for all supported IRAF platforms.
A new IRAF Newsletter, with detailed articles on the features of IRAF V2.11, exists in draft form and should be available soon (we would have had it out shortly after the V2.11 release but the ADASS conference interrupted things).
The initial August release of IRAF V2.11 supported only SunOS and Solaris platforms (a single release now supports both). Versions for all the remaining IRAF platforms are being prepared and should be available this fall. Those being worked on first are the DEC Alpha running Digital Unix, HP/UX, SGI, AIX, and all PC-IRAF platforms (Slackware and RedHat Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris x86, and a new port to the Macintosh running MkLinux). Updates for other IRAF platforms such as OpenVMS, DEC Ultrix, etc., will follow. As updates for these platforms become available they will be announced on the IRAF mail exploder (newsgroup/list adass.iraf.announce) and on the IRAF web pages. Please contact the IRAF group if you are uncertain about the availability of IRAF V2.11 for a particular platform.
The first patch for V2.11 is planned for release probably before this Newsletter goes to press. This patch will fix all bugs found since the EXPORT release in August (there haven't been very many). More importantly for users of the Sun platform, the Sun version of the patch will add support for Solaris 2.6. As we release V2.11 for new platforms these will automatically include any patches released up until the time of the platform release.
A new release, Version 1.1, of the X11IRAF package (Xgterm, Ximtool, etc.) was made available in early September and can be found in the /iraf/x11iraf directory in the IRAF network archives on iraf.noao.edu. This is mostly a bug-fix release to patch any problems found since the X11IRAF V1.0 release last spring. The new version of Ximtool also includes support for the new V2.11 image formats, and some optional experimental GUIs for Ximtool providing early versions of new capabilities such as a magnifier marker. In addition a new version V1.7.1 of SAOtng (an alternative image viewer for IRAF from SAO) was released in early September. See the URL http://hea-www.harvard.edu/RD/ for further information on SAOtng and related software.
The data handling system for the NOAO CCD Mosaic continues to be a major focus of development for the IRAF group at NOAO. An early but completely working version of the Mosaic DHS exists now; it and the Mosaic instrument have been in heavy use at the Kitt Peak 4-meter and 0.9-meter telescopes since mid-September. Major components of the Mosaic DHS include a data feed client for the Arcon controller used by the Mosaic, a Data Capture Agent (DCA) used to capture data to disk as multi-extension FITS files, a new GUI for the DCA, a message bus prototype used to tie all the DHS software together, and the MSCRED Mosaic data reductions package for IRAF. Within MSCRED, much work has been done on image combining and on calibrating the astrometric characteristics of the Mosaic. MSCRED is in heavy use this fall to reduce actual science data. An initial release of the DHS software for other observatories is planned for late this year; CFHT, Keck, and other observatories are collaborating on the development in the meantime. Development will continue in 1998, focusing on things such as the message bus framework (this is more a part of the NASA ADP-sponsored Open IRAF effort than of the Mosaic), real time image display, and addition of pixel mask support to MSCRED.
Members of the IRAF group attended the Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems (ADASS) conference in September. Papers on current IRAF developments were given by:
Lindsey Davis, "Astrometry with the NOAO Mosaic;"
Mike Fitzpatrick, "The IRAF Client Display Library (CDL);"
Doug Tody, "IRAF Message Bus and Distributed Object Technology;"
Doug Tody, Frank Valdes, "The Mosaic Data Capture Agent;"
Frank Valdes, "The IRAF Mosaic Data Reduction Package;" and
Nelson Zarate, "IRAF Multiple Extension FITS File Interface (MEF)."
For further information about the IRAF project please see the IRAF Web pages at http://iraf.noao.edu/ or send e-mail to iraf@noao.edu. The adass.iraf newsgroups on USENET (also available via mailing list subscription) provide timely information on IRAF developments and are available for the discussion of IRAF related issues.
Doug Tody, Jeannette Barnes