External SPECROAD: Version History

Fixed a bug reported by Megan Kiminki in specroadobj that I introduced in the last update. Also working on isolating problem with HPRESCREEN with a minor tweak to the code there.

In order to upgrade to this version of E-SPECROAD from a previous version (any hectoshell distribution dated before June 25, 2009), you will need to

1. Download the appropriate hectoshell script tarball for your operating system.
2. Upgrade your IRAF hectospec scripts to version 3.5.8 (or later)
3. Upgrade your IRAF rvsao scripts to version 2.7.6 (or later)
4. If you use Scisoft (either MacOS X or Linux version), edit the line in your ~/.tcshrc file that read
   
   setenv PATH /usr/local/starbase/bin/:${PATH}
   
   to now read
   
   setenv PATH /usr/local/starbase/bin/:/usr/local/iraf/wcstools/bin/:${PATH}
   
   And make sure the lines occur after you link to the Scisoft installation in your ~/.tcshrc file. You need to do this to avoid a conflict between the version of wcstools you installed and the one included with Scisoft.
5. [OPTIONAL BUT RECOMMENDED] Run through step 12 of my installation instructions "Some Double-checking for common glitches". It may save you some grief later.
6. [OPTIONAL BUT RECOMMENDED] Since some of the IRAF packages changed and some command might have new parameters, your old parameter files might conflict. To preemptively fix this, launch IRAF and type the following commands:
   
hectospec
hrelearn

The first command should load the hectospec package if it is not already loaded, the second one informs IRAF of the various new parameters in some of the hectospec and rvsao commands. If it balks and asks you for a string/filename, hit return. If it asks for a number, hit ctrl-C and rerun 'hrelearn'. According to Jessica Mink that should clean up your parameter files properly without nuking them.

A minor edit to HPRESCREEN to make it a bit more through in listing files that you might want to remove before running. Still not perfect, but useful for pruning files earlier in specroad.

There were three changes made since the release of the previous version of E-SPECROAD:

1. I added HPRESCREEN to E-SPECROAD. Basically, it serves as a backup for the human, checking for possible spurious image files that you most likely do NOT want to process and looking for attempts to process data with multiple grating setups.
2. I added some checking for those situations where the bias frames are all rejected and you end up with no Zero.fits file. Previously, E-SPECROAD would continue processing, happily crashing IRAF multiple times along the way as you tried to zero-correct using a non-existent Zero.fits file. This no longer occurs.
3. Finally, I modified specroadobj to automatically determine the wavelength range to use from the sflat.ms.fits or domeflat.ms.fits file instead of reading it from the hlin parameters in IRAF. This avoids the possibility that the hlin parameters might be incorrect because you ran hlin seperately from E-SPECROAD and changed the parameters between the run of specroadcal and specroadobj.

Additional tweaks to E-SPECROAD to allow it to handle data with a variety of gratings and tilts with minimal user interaction. I have added the automatic determination of wavelength ranges in the spectra before linearization (with user interaction to tweak it if desired) as well as automatically selection of the appropriate sky line.

I have revised the User's Guide to reflect these changes to E-SPECROAD. In addition to reflecting changes in the E-SPECROAD scripts, I have also updated the documentation to explicitly outline in which subdirectories various images end up during the processing. To make it more readable, I pulled out all "hints" and and other material that don't count as instructions for data reduction into highlighted yellow boxes to make it easier for student researchers to see just what they need to know.

Finally, I updated the installation instructions a bit to reflect the updated requirements and to deal with an issue I discovered on a local installation with the wcstools from Scisoft conflicting with the one installed as part of the installation. To help users, I have also added a section at the end of the installation to help users double-check that everything is installed properly and working well.

Released the first version of E-SPECROAD that works without a hitch on 600gpm data centered at 4800Å, which is the data I have!

To upgrade to the current version of E-SPECROAD, users will also need to update their hectospec and rvsao IRAF package installations to the latest version (links are in the installation instructions), as well as downloading the current hectoshell distribution for their platform. The installation instructions and user's guide have been updated for all the new changes.