IRAF is the Image Reduction and Analysis Facility - an old-school astronomical data reduction and analysis environment. Installation is traditionally something of a pain and the user interface is pretty much stuck in the early 1980s.
To bring the core IRAF functions into the modern world Python a wrapper called PyRAF was created but as has been mentioned elsewhere Python itself can be a little troublesome to manage…
Out of pity for astronomers the fine folks at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) provide an add-on to Anaconda called AstroConda which installs various STScI software and utilities, including a tamed IRAF install.
To install this suite you first need to install Miniconda. You then need to check if the directory /opt/iraf-support/
exists, and if not then ask Robert or Malachy to install the IRAF support package - you can't do this yourself. Then you can either proceed to the AstroConda pages and follow instructions, or else follow this summary:
module load miniconda3
conda config --add channels http://ssb.stsci.edu/astroconda
conda create -n iraf27 python=2.7 iraf-all pyraf-all stsci
To run IRAF:
module load miniconda3
source activate iraf27
xgterm &
1)mkiraf
y
for Initialize uparm
- this is where IRAF keeps its config files.xgterm
for the terminal type.cl
logout
or lo
While the IRAF install which comes as part of AstroConda has many third-party packages installed, it does not include the SPTABLE package. This can be installed but it's not trivial. Follow the steps below:
module load miniconda3
source activate iraf27
cd $iraf
mv extern extern.bak
mkdir extern
cp /opt/iraf-support/configure extern
cd extern
./configure
make self_update
make sptable
With these steps complete you should see the sptable
packages listed as available when you start a new CL session.
The ds9 image viewer is often used alongside IRAF for image display and analysis. The AstroConda IRAF install bundles its own copy of ds9 and you should not load the standalone ds9 module as things will probably get very confused.