IRAF (Re: [OT]: Sort-of. What's the best way to "contribute")
On Thursday 17 October 2002 00:10, burningclown@burningclown.com wrote:
> In my case, I'm trying to wed my rediscovered
> interest in astronomy to my desire to push myself in the realm of
> programming/Linux/Unix.
Just making sure you are aware that IRAF is packaged in Debian... :-)
IRAF is _the_ data reduction software in astronomy, everyone is using
it.
I found it to be in contrib, but I really don't understand why, because
I thought it was under a BSD-style license, and I can't remember it
depending on non-free software. Hm, I found a point in the FAQ:
http://iraf.noao.edu/iraf/web/faq/FAQsec01.html#1008
Anyway, integrating IRAF with more popular astronomy software would be
absolutely great. I think many advanced amateur astronomers would
appreciate that.
Really, I find it weird that companies such as Meade has not yet freed
their software. They're making a living from hardware and not software,
and besides, they are releasing some as freeware. Go figure. At the
same time, there exists tons of free software for telescope control and
data reduction, also developed specifically for Meade telescopes,
developed by professional astronomers. Well, I guess dropping them a
note about it is a good idea.
Many astronomers use IRAF with IDL, but IMNSHO IDL sucks bad, so the
only reason anybody would use that is the number of lines of code for
it. I'd really like to see IRAF working nicely with R, which is free
software (and nicely packaged . Doing that would be a huge undertaking,
though. But I think many professional astronomers would appreciate it
eventually... :-)
Best,
Kjetil (astrophysicist)
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