Overview
The aXe software package is designed for the extraction, calibration, visualization, and simulation of spectra from slitless spectroscopic instruments.
The overall aXe package consists of three components:
- aXe – automated extraction and calibration of spectra from slitless spectroscopic images
- aXe2web – creates webpages for easy visualization and inspection of aXe output products
- aXeSIM – simulation of slitless spectral images
aXe was originally developed by the Space Telescope - European Coordinating Facility (ST-ECF), a unit of the European Space Agency (ESA) hosted by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) headquarters in Garching, Germany. As of January 1, 2011, the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) has taken responsibility for support and distribution of the software.
To report problems, or seek help on aXe issues not addressed in these webpages, please contact help@stsci.edu.
aXe News
2013-04-01Fix for iolprep bug reported on 2013-03-13 in aXe v2.x available in SSBX (aka IRAFX, the STSDAS testing environment).
2013-03-13
Bug Report 2013-03-13 (IRAFX 2013-03-07; aXe v2.x iolprep)
2013-03-11
The WFC3 IR grism cookbook has been updated to reflect changes made to the aXe software to accommodate AstroDrizzle image products. An updated manual will be available shortly.
2013-03-07
aXe was originally designed to support Multidrizzle style astrometric information. Current (aXe v2.3) and earlier versions of the software rely on output files from the Multidrizzle process to transform object pixel coordinates between the user supplied "drizzled" direct image and corresponding spectral images. We are currently working on updating aXe to accommodate the use of new Astrodrizzle products, and maintain back-compatability with Multidrizzle.
A version of aXe, where iolprep and fcubeprep has been modified for compatibility with Astrodrizzle, is available via SSBX (aka IRAFX, the STSDAS testing environment). Work and testing of these tasks are still on-going. Release notes can be found here.