                                                   July 1998 (S.Josephine Chan)

CIRSI Data Redcution and Analysis Facility (CIRSI-DRAF) news

***** Warning * Warning * Waring * Warning * Warning * Warning * Warning *****

   CIRS-DRAF is released as an Experimental Version which means that it is not
quite stable. The tasks may still contain some undiscovered bugs. The bugs
will be fixed anytime as soon as they are discovered. Therefore, it is STRONGLY
DISCOURAGED to make a "private" copy in one's account. It is one's own risk.
For external site (Carnegie site only), an OFFICAL copy must be 
obtained by the author of CIRSI-DRAF (see next section).

***** Warning * Warning * Waring * Warning * Warning * Warning * Warning *****

(A) Registration

    If one would like to use CIRSI-DRAF, one MUST "register" to the author
of CIRSI-DRAF. One's email address will be put in the mail list of CIRSI-DRAF.
Regular support, correct instruction, and new information about CIRSI-DRAF
or related to CIRSI-DERAF will be provided. If one would like to become
a "registration user", please send an email to S.Josephine Chan
(sjchan@ast.cam.ac.uk) for request.


(B) General

  The CIRSI Data Reduction and Analysis Facility (CIRSI-DRAF) is 
released as a test version 0.0.2.  There are at least four main packages
in CIRSI-DRAF, which are CQLOOK, CPLINE, CIRUTIL and CIRCONTRIB. The package
structure of  CIRSI_DRAF is similar to IRAF, STSDAS or any of large external
packages which run under IRAF environment. Any scientific data analysis 
packages related to CIRSI data will be subpackages in CIRSI-DRAF in the future. 
  
(C) What's new! 

In CIRSI:

    CNEWS - display the content of newsletter.
      An option is added in order to read preivous newsletter.
      (hidden parameter = docnew)
      (e.g.: June Newsletter location: cirsi$doc/cirsi_news_june98)

In CIRCONTRIB:

    CIRCONTRIB is a new subpackage of CIRSI_DRAF. It is a contribution 
package in which tasks are contributed by other sites or users. Currently, it 
only contains a task called IMAGE_FOCUS contributed by ING. 


In CQLOOK:
 
  In CQLOOK.CPREPROC:

  The following tasks are modified:


    CNDRPROC  - perform the basic preprocessing and sky-subtraction processing
                 if the readout mode is NDR.
       Several options have been added to the task CNDRPROC. More changes will
         be done in the coming months. 

         The following new options are available: 
  
      (a) to process data from a selected chip. (hidden parameter = quadnos)
      (b) to process data from a selected quadrant (i.e.: not assemble from
             quadrants to chips).
               (hidden parameters = standard, quadnos)
      (c) using commas "," and dash "-" as delimiters in order to produce a
            list of non consecutive run numbers.
               (hidden parameter = rnorange)
      (d) to preform dark correction.
               (hidden parameters =   darkcorr,  scalfac,  darklist)
      (e) to preform flat-fielding
               (hidden parameters = flatcorr, flatlist, delskyfl)
      (f) to stop after RC-correction
               (hidden parameter = stoprc)
      (g) to stop after assembling from quadrants to chips
               (hidden parameter = stopass)
      (h) to turn off the scaling quadrants during assembling
           quadrants to chips.
               (hidden parameter = doscaleq)
      (i) to support for users to supply a directory where the
           raw data are kept.
               (hidden parameter = datapath)
      (j) Prefix of input images changed from required parameter to 
           hidden parameter.


    CSTRIPE - destriping the "uniform stripe" noise from a set of adjacent 
               pairs of RC-quadrant-images.
       Three options were added in order to drive an external task contributed
               by Dr. Mike Irwin.
                  (parameter = index)  index = MB, MR or MC


    CASSQUAD - assemble a set of 4n quadrant-images with size 512x512 into
                    n chip-images with size 1024x1024. 
    CMKCHIP - assemble m sets of 4n quadrant-images with size 512x512 into
                    mxn chip-images withsize 1024x1024.
       An option was added in order to turn off the option of scaling the 
            quadrants.
              (parameter = doscale)


    CQTRANS - transpose the orientaton of each quadrant to face north 
                   from a list of lists of object quadrant-images.
                    (north - up: seen in Ximtool)
          This is a new task!



  In CQLOOK.CREDUCT:

   The following are new tasks:

   CMKDNFLAT   - make a normalized flat frame from a list of domeflat frames
                    and domedark frames
   CMKMSNFLAT  - make a normalized flat frame using from a list of skyframes
                    obtaining from moving-sky flat method
   CMKQDNFLAT  - make a list of "normalized-flat" quadrant-images
                    (or chip-images) from a list of lists of domeflat 
                    quadrant-images (or chip-images) and a list of lists of
                    dome dark frames
   CMKQMSNFLAT - makemake a list of "normalized-flat" quadrant-images
                    (or chip-images) from a list of lists of sky frames
                    quadrant-images (or chip-images) obtaining from
                    moving-sky flat method

   
  The following tasks are modified:

  CMKDARK  - make a dark frame from a list of dark frames
  CMKQDARK - make a list combined dark quadrant-images (or chip-images)
                 from a list of lists of dark quadrant-images (or chip-images)
        An option is added in order to make a normalized dark
             (parameter = scalfac)

  CSUBDARK  - perform dark correction given a combined dark frame
  CSUBQDARK - perform dark correction given a list of combined dark frames



In CIRUTIL:

  CIRDITHER  - mosaic a list of images in a given dithering pattern 
                   based on the information from headers or a given file.


In CIRCONTRIB:
 
     image_focus - find the optimum telescope focus for an imaging system.
                   (contributed by ING)


(D) Basic requirement to use CIRSI-DRAF

CIRSI-DRAF is written under IRAF environment. Therefore. it is strongly
recommended to know the basic of IRAF in order to use the package effectively.
The following is the information:

       A Beginner' Guide to Using IRAF Version 2.10 (Jeannette Barnes) : A 
good IRAF manual for IRAF users, not just only for beginners. 

      Introductory CIRSI-DARF help/tutorial is available for NEW users of
CIRSI-DRAF.


(E) Other information about CIRSI-DRAF
    There is a Web site for CISI-DRAF. The address of the master web page is

  http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~cirsi/cirsi/local/data_reduction/cirsi/cirsi.html
  
    It can be accessed by local site users (Cambridge) and "registered" 
external site users.





