June 1996                                   Volume 4, No. 4

IUE PROJECT NEWSLETTER

This is an electronic newsletter, edited by Terry Teays, 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.

IUE Image Processing News

NEWSIPS Status

We are continuing to process NASA SWP and LWP low-dispersion data as they have become available. All 18th episode (and earlier) images are now releasable and are being processed through NEWSIPS. Sky background images are now being processed, but not nulls and flat field images.

Some images have not been processed because of missing database information or other problems. We are currently working on getting those images taken care of and processed. If you need images that seem unavailable, please contact Cathy Imhoff (301-794-1470, or imhoff@iuegtc.gsfc.nasa.gov). She can check on them and in many cases fix the problem so that the images can be processed for you.

Work on the software to process SWP high-dispersion images is nearly completed. We should be able to start processing those images later this summer. Stay tuned for further developments!

- Cathy Imhoff

IUEDAC Software Changes (since 01-May-1996):

07-May

A new version of the program artifactwas added to the experimental library which includes the "as yet unpublished" high dispersion camera artifacts compiled by Crenshaw et al.

07-May

The following experimental routines were implemented:

ifitswrt: fixes bug which occurs when updating large binary table files
iueftype: uses the first 3-letters of the file extension to identify NEWSIPS files
bspot: uses new version of iueftype
iuedisplay: compatible with NEWSIPS files and IDL for Windows
lblfix: uses new iueftype
rdim: uses new iueftype and supports NEWSIPS high dispersion files
prolog: bug fix for Power Macs
platform: uses node name NDADS rather than NDADSA (which has gone away).

10-May

A new version of mxcon was implemented which corrects a problem which occurred when the new version of iueftype was installed on May 7th.

27-May

The low dispersion sky background files used in the program artifact have been modified to include data quality flags.

28-May

The Copernicus database table has been updated to include the IUE object classes, and a new version of clog was implemented to allow searches on this field.

28-May

The IUE orbital elements tables (i.e., deltav.lis and nelements.lis) were updated.

30-May

A new version of ifitsrd was installed which corrects a bug when trying to read multiple rows from an ASCII Table extension.

Warning regarding IUEDAC Routine `curestr`

Some IUEDAC IDL routines called a program named curestr to prevent NEWSIPS files from being input before they were officially released. The original version for example, accepted only SWP low dispersion images. Any other type of file would cause the program to terminate.

Now that high dispersion NEWSIPS data is about to become available, we have removed the calls to this program. Users who have installed older versions of the IUEDAC software and who intend to analyze the most recent Final Archive data, may want to consider either installing a new version of the IUEDAC software, or commenting out the calls to this routine. The programs affected include readmx, readri, readli, readsi, boxcar, bspot, coadd, gex, iueread, lblfix, rdim, rdstds, and rdz.

- Randy Thompson

Back to the IUE Data Analysis Center Page

Web Curator

Mr. James Caplinger, Computer Sciences Corporation

Responsible NASA Organization/Official

Dr. Don West, IUE Operations Scientist