AIPS:  2005 Quarter 2

Key Developments

1.   Methods were developed in the last quarter of 2004 to allow for
binary distribution of AIPS.  In the first half of 2005, 31 sites
downloaded the frozen 31DEC04 version and 123 sites downloaded the
development 31DEC05 version of AIPS using this capability.  So far, a
total of 174 sites have downloaded 31DEC04, 460 sites have downloaded
31DEC05, and 541 sites have used the AIPS cvs code management
facility.  In all, 856 different sites (different IP addresses) appear
in one or more of these lists.

2.   The task that corrects VLBI phases for the measured ionospheric
elctron content was changed.  The previous model, that electron
content remains fixed wrt the Sun, is clearly not correct when the
ionospheric content is relatively stable.  The task was changed to
allow for intermediate models between one fixed wrt the Earth and the
former model.  The web address at which one obtains the ionospheric
data has changed.

3.   The task that merges and smooths solution tables and applies them
to the calibration table was changed to do a true merger rather than
simply a concatenation and sort into time order.

4.   Miscellaneous changes included changing the calibration tasks to
ignore other sources in the calibrator model when scaling fluxes of 
the calibration sources, correcting the table plotting and flagging
tasks for a variety of minor errors and inconveniences, correcting the
task that makes Clean box files to handle simple imaging cases, and
changing the task that constructs image cubes to allow the user to
override the normal coordinate handling.  The largest allowed image in
AIPS was raised to 32768 on a side.  The GNU software that allows the
user to do in-line editing while typing, called readline, was updated
so that it will install on modern operating systems.


Goals for the Third Quarter 2005

1.   Continue user support and bug fixes, as the major portion of AIPS 
effort.  Add the Intel compiler for Linux if license issues can be
resolved.

2.   Add to the task which computes the fluxes of the primary flux
calibration sources new (2004) flux values and interpolation in time
between the tabulated values.

3.   Provide support for pipeline data reduction, especially new
automatic editing algorithms.

4.   Begin investigations of new/improved imaging algorithms,
including those dealing with spectral index and multiple pointings.

5.   Install modern world coordinate handling software to enhance
and replace the original AIPS coordinate handling.