IUE Project Electronic Newsletter

NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)

Vol. 4, No. 10 - December 1996

Recent IUEDAC Software Changes

(Since 01-Nov-1996)

23-Nov: The Copernicus (i.e. OAO3) catalog has been updated. The new version includes corrected coördinates.
02-Dec: The experimental version of readmx was implemented which corrects some problems when reading NEWSIPS high dispersion spectral files.
02-Dec: The PC version of the IUEDAC software and databases have been updated. New self-extracting zip files are now available via the anonymous ftp account on iuewww.
03-Dec: The IUE merged observing log was updated. The new version corrects the previous error found in the observing dates. Entries through September 30th are included.
09-Dec: The IUEDAC software and databases for Sun, Ultrix, and Macintosh platforms have been updated, and are available from the anonymous ftp account on archive.stsci.edu.

What's on Your IUEDAC Christmas List?

The DAC staff would like to know! We are planning what to work on for the near future and, although we have limited resources, would like to provide what you need most. Here are some categories to think about. Please send your ideas and comments, by early January 1997, to Cathy Imhoff or Randy Thompson.

Analysis tools: custom extraction of NEWSIPS data, extract individual emission lines, correct for Lyman-alpha emission contamination, correct for streak contamination, customized calibrations (e.g. extend IUE Project calibration to broader wavelength range)

Documentation: IUE telescope operations, Final Archive processing software, IUE calibrations, IUE database (observing and processing log), analysis software and techniques

Access: Web pages, anonymous ftp, NEWSIPS image processing software, complete IUE database (more extensive than Merged Log), IUEDAC software on new platforms, comparisons of IUESIPS versus NEWSIPS processed data, other UV data sets, models, line libraries, catalogs, IUE Three Agency reports, IUE Users' Committee Proceedings, scanned scripts available online, data on CDROM

- Cathy Imhoff

IDL 5.0 Announced

IDL 5.0 is now in beta testing and is expected to be released by RSI next Spring. In this release IDL becomes an object-oriented language with major changes to the graphics commands and several enhancements such as the ability to use pointers to reference data sets by memory location. Although the new release is supposed to be backwards compatible with IDL 4.0.1, we suspect that some changes will be required to the IUEDAC software.

Users should be cautioned that because the IUE budget precludes the cost of IDL maintenance, the IUEDAC will be unable to upgrade to the new release. We will welcome however, user-donated routines which are 5.0-compatible (assuming they are still downwards compatible), and will make them available to other users.

- Randy Thompson

Staff Changes

Joy Nichols recently left the project to take up a position with the Space Infrared Telescope Facility. We wish her the best in her new endeavor.

- Jim Caplinger

This is an electronic newsletter, edited by Jim Caplinger, primarily intended to inform the numerous remote and local users of the IUEDAC software of recent software updates, as well as let them know about news relating to the IUE project in general. If you want your name to be added to, deleted from, or changed on our distribution list, please send us e-mail at archive@stsci.edu.

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Mr. James R. Caplinger, Computer Sciences Corporation

Responsible NASA Organization/Official

Dr. Don West, IUE Operations Scientist