CONTRIBUTED CODE

With the advent of the binary versions of AIPS, it has become more difficult to compile special local tasks. If one wants to do this and also take advantage of the improved performance of the NRAO-purchased compilers (Intel for LINUX, LNX64, and MACINT; IBM for MACPPC; SUN for Solaris), the user must purchase the compiler(s) for himself. This can be rather expensive. There are two ways out of this bind. If the local task is of sufficient interest, you could try to pursuade the AIPS group to include it in the general AIPS distribution. This requires the code to be written up to a least some minimal standard. A recent example is ATLOD which translates older Autralia Telescope data into AIPS. The alternative is to send the code and help file to the AIPS group and ask them to compile to routines, leaving the results on the AIPS ftp site. This has now been done for 4 tasks: HAP and ORFIT in a CfA directory and SETVY and CALIV in a WSRT directory. Both of these site directories are located in a CONTRIB directory at the main AIPS public ftp site.

The load modules are stored under the name task.EXE.arch to identify the operating system (arch) to which the load module corresponds. To install them in your system, copy the help file (task.HLP) to $TST/HELP/ and copy the appropriate load module to $TST/$ARCH/LOAD/task.EXE. Note that one has to rename the load module dropping the architecture string. For LNX64 machines two load modules are provided, one compiled with the gnu compiler and one with the intel compiler. In general, for a binary installation, you will want the intel version.

THE MIDNIGHT JOB

... will be of interest to you if you want the latest 31DEC06 and 31DEC07 versions updated nightly, weekly, or occasionally. It can do either text or binary updates depending on which sort you did with install.pl.

NVSS and WENSS/WISH Survey files for AIPS

The WENSS/WISH files have been corrected (2 July 2004) to omit the sources which are the sum of other "components" also appearing in the lists. Note that the survey files shipped with AIPS releases include the shorter lists of the stronger sources. The full lists are only available from this ftp site.

DOCUMENTATION

AIPS Memos, Reports, old AIPSLetters, the Cookbook, Going AIPS, access to the newest versions of the HELP files, search CHANGE.DOC and more. The most recent AIPS Memos are:

• number 115, discussing new auto-boxing for Clean capabilites in AIPS, dated June 29, 2009,
• number 114, re-stating the FITS-IDI convention with corrections and added tables, dated June 25, 2009,
• number 113, discussing a "new" geometric way to handle the W problem, dated May 22, 2009,
• number 112, discussing the AIPS pipeline for VLA data reduction, dated March 19, 2007,
• number 111, discussing phase referencing with more than one calibrator using ATMCA, dated January 6, 2005,
• number 110, discussing strategy for removing troposppheric and clock errors using DELZN, dated August 31, 2004,
• number 109, discussing AIPS on DVDs and read-only data systems, dated January 20, 2004,
• number 108, discussing weights for VLA data, dated January 21, 2003,
• number 107, discussing the differences between FRING and KRING, dated April 8, 2002,
• number 106, discussing the Brandeis scheme for making movies in AIPS dated June 6, 2001,
• number 105, discussing the new RUN file to simplify VLBA data reduction dated February 28, 2001 and April 26, 2001,
• number 104, discussing the new Y2K performance test dated September 8, 2000, and
• number 103, discussing data weighting in AIPS dated 2000-03-21.

MAIL GROUPS

The AIPS group maintains three e-mail exploder lists. The first, called daip, is restricted to immediate members of the AIPS group and a few NRAO scientist advisors. The other two are, however, open to any suitable person. Membership is moderated, of course, because SPAM has become so annoying.

The group intended for discussion of AIPS issues is called bananas and is used, among other things, to announce patches to the "frozen" versions of AIPS. Traffic is light. You can subscribe yourself to this list on-line.

The group intended for discussion of problems related to the "Midnight Job" is called mnj and is used to announce AIPS Manager things related to the current MNJ. Traffic is light, but the announcements can have a serious impact on any site attempting to stay current with the development version of AIPS. You can subscribe yourself to this list on-line.

FITS-IDI

The FITS Interferometry Data Interchange format is a set of FITS binary table definitions and a set of conventions for using them to transport radio interferometry data between different software packages.

The FITS Interferometry Data Interchange Convention (formerly Format) is soon to be re-examined as an IAU-acknowledged convention. This convention was documented by Chris Flatters in AIPS Memo 102 which, unfortunately, was not accompanied by an editable text version. Therefore, Eric Greisen had to re-type the document. While doing so, he updated some matters, corrected minor wording issues, and added 5 new sections for 5 new tables, 3 of which are actually in use. Interested parties should review draft memo in Postscript or in pdf before it is submitted to the IAU FITS Committee. Greisen has attempted to highlight the changed parts in red in this draft. The current draft is dated December, 2008 and includes the MODEL_COMPS table and comments from Lorant Sjowerman. Please e-mail egreisen@nrao.edu with comments.

AIPS MANAGER/INSTALLER FAQ

Help for the weary AIPS Installer. Very much experimental and incomplete, and probably needs updating, but better than nothing.

BENCHMARKS (the "DDT" and now the "Y2K")

The AIPS Benchmark was known as the "DDT" (Dirty Dozen Tasks); we have results for a variety of systems. A more modern test called "Y2K" has been developed in 2000 to test faster computers and to use IMAGR rather than MX. For 31DEC04 we have new master images and data sets. In addition, we have a new HUGE test using multi-resolution IMAGR on Cygnus A. Changes to CALIB and VTESS in particular forced this update, while faster computers make Y2K LARGE run in as little as 5 minutes.

DESIGNATED AIP

The former designated-AIP-of-the-week program; rotation has been halted due to the lack of personnel. The e-mail address (daip@nrao.edu) is still the best method of reaching all the members of the AIPS Group.

AIPS COPYRIGHT

AIPS is copyrighted by Associated Universities, Inc. using the GNU copright form. The full text is available with every AIPS release and may be read here.

RELATED SOFTWARE

• CASA;
• SLIME (Add-on to Classic AIPS);
• UniPOPS (Single Dish Software).
• Other NRAO Software

FITS

This is the Flexible Image Transport System, and is the standard data interchange format used by most Astronomical Software, including AIPS. Follow the above reference for a very extensive set of documentataion, including a large resource list for Astronomy on the internet.

HELP!

The primary AIPS address is the daip one referenced on our main Contact page, and general queries, requests for distribution tapes, documents, ftp access, and so on should be directed there. Application-oriented questions should be directed to the Designated AIP.

Copyright © 2009 Associated Universities, Inc.
The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.