From hack at stsci.edu Tue Feb 6 09:08:41 2007 From: hack at stsci.edu (Warren J. Hack) Date: Tue, 06 Feb 2007 09:08:41 -0500 Subject: [AstroPy] Synphot support for WFC3 and COS Message-ID: <45C88BE9.2050601@stsci.edu> Synphot support is now available for the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) and the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), planned for installation during the upcoming HST Servicing Mission #4. To enable synphot calculations for these instruments, download and install the latest version of the 'synphot1.tar.Z' data files, and the latest 'zzsetenv.def' file, which can be obtained at: http://www.stsci.edu/resources/software_hardware/stsdas/synphot/ (along with the installation instructions). Observing modes for the new instruments are described in the 2007 edition of the Synphot Data User's Guide, available here: http://www.stsci.edu/hst/HST_overview/documents/synphot/hst_synphot_cover.html ***Important***: Synphot support for COS and WFC3 is based on preliminary models of the instruments, which are likely to be revised before SM4 and will certainly be revised once the instruments are on orbit. All calculations performed with the current models should be considered preliminary. Revised models will be made available in the 'synphot1.tar.Z' download as they evolve. -- Warren J. Hack SAA Project Lead Space Telescope Science Institute 3700 San Martin Drive Baltimore MD, 21218 (410) 338-4943 From laidler at stsci.edu Mon Feb 12 15:27:39 2007 From: laidler at stsci.edu (Victoria G. Laidler) Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2007 15:27:39 -0500 Subject: [AstroPy] Coords v0.3 release now available Message-ID: <45D0CDBB.2050006@stsci.edu> Version 0.3 of the Coords package has been released and is now available at http://stsdas.stsci.edu/astrolib . This release expands support for time specification in AstroDate and Position. Release Notes: The following changes have been made: - timetag specification is now supported for TPM-related methods of Position objects. (See "An explanatory note about time", below, for more discussion.) - the AstroDate factory function was enhanced to accept a datetime.datetime object (assumed to be in UTC) as a time specification, and to produce a JulianDate of "utc now" when no argument is supplied. - tests were refactored; coords._test() now runs a doctest that matches the set of (now expanded) examples given to demonstrate package functionality. Unit tests were removed from the distribution and documentation. The package import statements were also trimmed down to avoid unnecessarily cluttering the namespace. An explanatory note about time: There are three times of interest associated with a celestial coordinate. TPM calls these - the equinox == time at which precession is zero - the epoch == time at which proper motion is zero - the timetag of the coordinate The Coords package enforces the following conventions: Equinox: equinox=B1950 for galactic coordinates and J1984 for ecliptic coordinates; celestial coordinates may be specified at J2000 or B1950, or at an arbitary Julian (decimal) year. Epoch: epoch=J2000 is enforced for all coordinate systems Timetag: timetag="time now" (current system time) by default for all coordinate systems; an arbitrary timetag may be specified as an AstroDate. Galactic and celestial coordinate systems are very insensitive to changes in "time now", but due to the nature of the ecliptic reference frame, ecliptic coordinates are quite sensitive.