Work to Do (was: Lots of Data)

["Glenn Gombert" <glenngombert@hotmail.com>]

Again. doing some more catching up with a previous thread:

   Michael has raised several key points:

“Within the TASS project, we have members running (various flavors of) Linux
and members running (various flavors of) Windows, and probably other
OSes, too.  Mike Gutzwiller, to make one specific example, wrote a very
nice piece of software to reduce Mark III scans.  He distributed both
Windows executables and the source code.  I have examined (profitably)
the source code, but never tried to build it on my Linux box; it would
take a LOT of work to port it to this environment.”


  I have essentially taken Mike’s Star processing code …and compiled it to 
run under Linux….it does support ‘batch’ processing …and as a command line 
option will put out Star-Lists in ASCII Fits Table format….this can be 
downloaded and from the TASS CVS archive that Michael has setup….It 
currently uses an old (simplified Mark III astrometry scheme)..that needs to 
be updated. as soon as Mike G. completes his new version of the Mark IV 
processing software….

“There is a software package used by many different astronomers
to reduce and analyze data from many different instruments.  It is
called "IRAF", and you can read about it, and download it, from”

  One (of the many) things that I have found about IRAF ..is that is does 
not operate on FITS images directly…but makes a ‘copy’ of any FITS image 
that it reads in and stores…and thus easily doubles the disk storage 
requirement(s) for processing any set of images….say if you had 2.5 
gigabytes of images from one nights data reduction…then it would take an 
additional 2.5 gigabytes of disk storage (to hold the original 2.5 gigabytes 
of images).. this alone (for me anyway)..is a good reason to use another 
method ..to reduce Mark IV images…

“There is a software package used by many different astronomers
to reduce and analyze data from many different instruments.  It is
called "IRAF", and you can read about it, and download it, from”

IRAF has been called “user antagonistic….rather that ‘user friendly” it is 
very difficult how to figure out how to chain complex sequences of 
operations together…and come up with the desired result in a repeatable 
fashion…Once someone has mastered how to do this…it can be quite 
rewarding…to use. but the learning curve is very high in deed..often taking 
a number of months to become really proficient with its use..

Glenn G.


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