As we write this article, version 1.0 of X11IRAF is undergoing in-house testing, and the package should be available for all supported platforms by the time this Newsletter is printed. Binaries are provided for all Unix/IRAF hosts including SunOS, Solaris, DEC Alpha OSF1, SGI IRIX, Linux, FreeBSD, IBM AIX, Dec Ultrix, and HP/AUX. The package includes major enhancements to Ximtool plus new documentation for Ximtool, Xgterm, and Xtapemon. See the last issue of this Newsletter for more details about the new version of X11IRAF. The distribution can be found in the directory /iraf/x11iraf on the IRAF network server iraf.noao.edu.
After a couple of years of patches to V2.10 IRAF we finally have a date for the IRAF V2.11 release. The chief driver for the release is the upcoming Hubble reservicing mission, which if all goes well, should be over by the time this Newsletter is out. The new instruments, STIS and NICMOS, will be installed during the reservicing mission with observing scheduled to begin several months after the shuttle launches in February. A new version of STSDAS will be released in the spring to support the new instruments, and the upcoming IRAF V2.11 IRAF release will provide support for the new release of STSDAS. The Open IRAF NASA grant, which commenced in December, is providing partial support for this IRAF release.
In the next weeks the new IRAF system will be frozen at the application level and internal beta testing will begin. After the initial testing has been completed and any problems resulting have been identified and fixed, the system will move from our development system to our Sun servers in-house to begin rigorous user testing. Meanwhile the new expanded FITS support, including the new FITS kernel, and other system enhancements will be installed and tested on our development system before they are moved over to our Sun servers for the usual user testing. We will have more details about the V2.11 release in the next issue of this Newsletter.
IRAF has won a major NASA grant for the development of our image display and GUI technology. In collaboration with the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, IRAF has been awarded a grant from the NASA Applied Information Systems Research program (AISR) for developing the "plug-in extensible image server". Our intention is that this new image display facility will eventually replace and supplant both Ximtool and SAOtng. The new display server will be based on the current IRAF Object Manager GUI technology and on Ximtool and SAOtng, but will be a major step beyond both.
To quote from the grant proposal: "...we describe the next step in our plan to evolve our existing software into a fully extensible, cross-platform image display server that can run stand-alone or be integrated seamlessly into astronomical analysis systems. We will build a Plug-in Image Extension (PIE) server for astronomy, consisting of a modular image display engine that can be customized using "plug-in" technology. We will create plug-ins that reproduce all the current functionality of SAOtng and more. We also will devise a messaging system and a set of distributed, shared data objects to support integrating the PIE server into astronomical analysis systems. Finally, we will migrate our PIE server, plug-ins, and messaging software from the Unix and the X Window System to a platform-independent architecture the utilizes Tcl/Tk and Java." The PIE will provide the engine for the Real-Time Display being developed for the NOAO CCD Mosaic project. We are grateful to NASA for their continued support of the IRAF project.
Much effort continues to go towards development of the data handling system for the NOAO Mosaic. A prototype of the data processing software was completed last fall and was used in the last several Mosaic engineering runs. Work is underway on the messaging system and on a distributed shared image facility, which will serve as the framework for the data capture agent, real-time display, IRAF interface, and other components of the data handling system. Frank Valdes and Doug Tody are those most involved with the project at this stage. See the last two issues of this Newsletter for more details about the work the IRAF group is doing associated with the Mosaic project.
Mike Fitzpatrick did much of the work putting the new version of X11IRAF together and most recently has been developing a library of routines to allow host (non-IRAF C and Fortran) programs to display to image servers such as Ximtool and SAOimage. This library features high-level image display functions as well as image overlay marking, cursor and image readback, and print capabilities. A first version should be available around the time of the Newsletter release, and will be announced in the adass newsgroups. Nelson Zarate has been putting the finishing touches on the first version of the FITS image kernel as well as updating operating systems on various IRAF-supported platforms in preparation for the V2.11 release.
Lindsey Davis is continuing to work on the IRAF ASTROMETRY package and related software. Last quarter she modified the IMMATCH package SKYCTRAN task to use proper motion, parallax, and radial velocity, and to support a fully interactive image cursor and standard input mode, in which the user can enter the input and output coordinate systems, the input and output units, and the output format. She also added a new celestial pixel coordinate list matching task CCXYMATCH to the IMMATCH package. Lindsey is also continuing to investigate methods and user interfaces for local and remote astrometric catalog access and, with others in the group, to assess the requirements of the NOAO mosaic vis-a-vis astrometry software.
Rob Seaman has been working on an update to the FINDER package, which is used within NOAO for observing support for the Hydra multi-object spectrograph, as well as other astrometric work. The new version will use tasks from the IMMATCH package for performing the plate solution. User interface improvements include the ability to fit only a few stars and improve the predicted X&Y coordinates for the HST Guide Star Catalog sources. Rob is currently working on configuring the observing environment ("obsinit") for the NOAO mosaic data system. A major upgrade to the "Save the Bits" data archive software is pending that will allow STB to use writable CD-ROM disks in addition to the exabytes and DATs that are currently supported. In addition to KPNO data archiving that began in 1993, CTIO is now archiving data from four telescopes using their own STB system. A local STB system was also configured to support the SONG asteroseismology project at the KPNO Coudé Feed telescope. Rob supported this project with a special purpose version of the ICE CCDACQ package that allows triggering exposures as a precisely cadenced clock interval, as well as an queued autoFTP connection to transfer the many thousands of SONG spectra to a downtown Tucson computer for data reduction and analysis.
For further information about the IRAF project please see the IRAF Web pages at http://iraf.noao.edu/ or send email to iraf@noao.edu. The adass.iraf newsgroups on USENET provide timely information on IRAF developments and are available for the discussion of IRAF related issues.
Doug Tody, Jeannette Barnes