[AstroPy] Kapteyn Package 2.1 released

[Hans Terlouw]

We would like to announce the release of version 2.1 of the Kapteyn
Package, a collection of Python modules developed by the computer group
of the Kapteyn Astronomical Institute, University of Groningen, The
Netherlands.


Some of the package's features:

- Classes for the handling of spatial and spectral coordinates, WCS
   projections and transformations between different sky systems. Spectral
   translations (e.g. between frequencies and velocities) are supported as
   well as mixed coordinates. For WCS, Dr. Mark Calabretta's WCSLIB 4.7 is
   used. WCSLIB is integrated in the package and need not be installed
   separately.

- Tools for writing small applications for the display and interactive
   inspection of (FITS) data and for the creation of plots with world
   coordinate information, including all-sky plots. A unique feature is
   the possibility to make plots with mixed coordinates, e.g. where one
   axis is spatial and the other one is spectral. Matplotlib and PyFITS
   are used.

- Utilities for use with Matplotlib such as obtaining coordinate
   information from plots, interactively modifiable colormaps and timer
   events (to facilitate movie loops).

- A class for the efficient reading, writing and manipulating of simple
   table-like structures in text files.


New features:

- A class for plotting shapes like ellipses, rectangles and regular
   polygons. For these shapes angles and distances along a great circle
   are preserved. This class can be used for example to draw footprints on
   all-sky plots or a beam to show the resolution of an instrument.

- Support for RGB-coded images.

- A class containing a function for estimating gaussian components in a
   profile. These estimates could subsequently be used as initial
   estimates for a least squares fit.

- and, of course, many smaller improvements and some bugfixes.


Currently supported architectures are Linux, Apple Mac OS X and
Microsoft Windows.

Extensive documentation, including tutorial and background information,
as well as download and installation instructions can be found at
http://www.astro.rug.nl/software/kapteyn/


-- 
J. P. Terlouw
Kapteyn Astronomical Institute
University of Groningen
Postbus 800
NL-9700 AV Groningen
The Netherlands

Phone: +31-(0)50-3634068/73
Fax:   +31-(0)50-3636100