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3.20. Software

3.20.1. IRAF (STSDAS and PROS)


The most widely used astronomical reduction and analysis package is IRAF. It is available at NOAO (http://iraf.noao.edu/). Other packages, like STSDAS or PROS, with tasks tailored for specific reductions and analysis run under the IRAF kernel. Ports or IRAF exist, among others, for UNIX and Linux.

3.20.2 ASDS


The Astronomical Software Directory Service (http://asds.stsci.edu/asds/) is a collection of software-related documents and the means to perform full-text searches on them. This collection is made up of

Users can browse the contents or list their software in the ASDS.

Another useful listing of software packages and utilities is provided by SEDS and can be found at http://www.seds.org/billa/astrosoftware.html

3.20.3 Starlink

Selected packages are available on-line at the Starlink Software Store and can be accessed at http://www.starlink.rl.ac.uk/cgi-store/storetop. The distribution method is changing as the primary method in the future will be by CD-ROM instead.

3.20.4 Software-related publications

The latest software developments are usually presented at the Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems (ADASS) conferences. Their proceedings are published by the ASP. Another series were the ESO ST-ECF Data Analysis conferences whose proceedings were published by ESO.

3.20.5 IDL

The Interactive Data Language (IDL) developed by RSI (http://www.rsinc.com) is widely used for reduction and analysis. It is a commercial package with ports to many systems from laptops to workstations.

3.20.6 Linux for astronomy

The Random Factory (http://home.earthlink.net/~rfactory/lfa.html) publishes a CD-ROM with a collection of the most popular reduction and analysis astronomical software that run under the Linux operating system. The packages include:

3.20.7 Statistics

Some basic statistics computations are available in the ttools and statistics packages in STSDAS. More serious techniques, like multivariate analysis can be found in the Statistical Consulting Center for Astronomy (http://www.stat.psu.edu/~mga/scca). This site also contains a set of Frequently Asked Questions about statistical methods (http://www.stat.psu.edu/~mga/scca/q_and_a/index.html).

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