November 2009
** This release does not contain binaries for PowerPC Macintosh. However,
there are no known reasons why a user could not build this package from
source code on a PowerPC using the installation instructions for STSDAS.
This release of STSDAS contains changes to the pipeline code for most of
the instruments (ACS, WFPC2, NICMOS, and WFC3).
The specific changes are detailed in the following sections.
Platform Support
================
Binaries for this release were built on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4,
Solaris 5.8, and Mac OS X 10.5 (Intel architecture only).
Binaries were built with IRAF 2.14, except for Solaris, which were
built with IRAF 2.12.2a. IRAF is available from http://iraf.net.
HST_CALIB.WFC3
--------------
- support was added to run MultiDrizzle in the pipeline on WFC3 data
- CALWF3 v1.8.1 includes several updates and bug fixes, including:
1) The IR CRCORR calibration step, which performs up-the-ramp
fitting and cosmic-ray rejection on MultiAccum readouts to
form the single calibrated image in the FLT output file,
has been modified to behave differently for pixels that
have all of their samples flagged with some kind of problem
condition. Previously, pixels that had all samples flagged
(e.g. as a bad pixel, dq=4; a hot pixel, dq=16; an unstable
pixel, dq=32) still had a ramp fit calculated from their
samples, the result of which was stored in the SCI array of
the output FLT file, along with the associated DQ values
recorded in the output DQ array of the FLT file. The new
version places a value of zero in the SCI array of the FLT
file for these pixels, while still carrying over the list
of DQ values into the DQ array of the FLT file.
2) The IR CRCORR step was also upgraded to allow the user to
specify a data quality (DQ) mask value to use in rejecting
pixel samples, whereas previously the mask value was set
inside the software. The mask value is now read from the
"badinpdq" column of the IR cosmic-ray rejection parameters
reference table (CRREJTAB). Note that this change requires
the use of a new version of the CRREJTAB that has non-zero
values entered in the "badinpdq" column of the table. The
default value now being used in OPUS processing is 316
(256+32+16+8+4).
3) The UVIS and IR FLATCORR calibration steps, which divide
science images by a flatfield reference image and apply the
detector gain calibration to convert the data from units
of DN to electrons, have been fixed to correct a problem
associated with quadrant-dependent gain values. Gain
variations between detector quadrants are naturally
accounted for in the flatfield images and therefore applying
quadrant-dependent gain values for the gain calibration
step produced an overcorrection. The gain calibration part
of the FLATCORR step has been modified to compute and apply
the mean gain of all four quadrants to the entire image. The
gain values come from the CCDTAB reference table.
4) The IR FLATCORR routine was fixed to reset the BUNIT
keyword in the headers of output IMA and FLT files from units
of COUNTS to ELECTRONS after the gain calibration is applied.
5) A bug was fixed in the WF3REJ routine that was causing
crashes when combining REPEAT-OBS combinations of IR
subarray images. The bug only affected IR subarray images,
not full frame.
6) Several routines within CALWF3 were modified to set
correct values for the NEXTEND keyword in the headers of IR
association product files, including DRZ, CRJ, and SPT files.
HST_CALIB.WFPC2
---------------
- CALWP2 V2.5.5 is the final version used for reprocessing all WFPC2
data in the archive to generate the final, static archive of
calibrated WFPC2 data.
- This version fixed a bug to allow CALWP2 to run successfully
on MEF input images when DOHISTOS=PERFORM and initialized
ZP_CORR keyword value to 0.0 when DOPHOTOM=OMIT
HST_CALIB.ACS
--------------
- CALACS V5.0.5 fixed problems with ACSREJ choking when the
input image had empty DQ arrays (no bad pixels were flagged in
input images).
HST_CALIB.NICMOS
----------------
- CALNICA v4.4.1 updated to address the following issues:
+ temperature from bias limits are checked when applying the
TDD dark reference file during the shading correction step
while the AMPGLOW and LIN extension values are also used.
+ the value of ALLOWDIF was revised so that the correct darks
get chosen for extremely short bright object mode images.
+ the code now provides specific instructions to the user about
updating the dark reference file to use a temp-from-bias file
when TFBLOW or TFBHIGH keywords are not found, then it simply
exits so that an incorrect dark does not get applied.
ANALYSIS.DITHER
---------------
- IRAF EPAR interface to PyDrizzle updated to support multiple
chip specifications using comma-separated integers as input
to the 'section' parameter.
- Drizzle FORTRAN code updated to correctly apply photometric
scaling when using SIP coefficients for distortion model in
drizzle tasks
ANALYSIS.NEBULAR
----------------
- some data files missing from the previous release were added
back in for this release; specifically, ar_ii_atom, ar_ii_coll,
ne_ii_atom, and ne_ii_coll.
ANALYSIS.SLITLESS
-----------------
- new version of aXe, Version 2.0, as well as the aXesim package,
Version 1.3, are included in this release. More details on
these packages can be obtained directly from ST-ECF at:
http://www.stecf.org/software/slitless_software/axe/
http://www.stecf.org/software/slitless_software/axesim/
