STSDAS Documentation

Much of the documentation for STSDAS tasks resides in various cookbooks and handbooks. A good introduction to using IRAF and STSDAS to analyze HST data is the HST Data Handbook , especially the Introduction. More specialized information can be found in the data handbooks of the individual instruments:

• ACS: Advanced Camera for Surveys
  PDF version


• FGS: Fine Guidance Sensors
  PDF version


• NICMOS: Near Infrared Camera and Multi Object Spectrometer
  PDF version


• STIS: Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph
  PDF version


• WFPC2: Wide Field Planetary Camera 2
  PDF version

Other resources include:

• The STSDAS Site Manager's Installation Guide and Reference.


• The STScI User's Guide to the FITS kernel provides a read online guide.


• The NOAO FITS userguide provides a dowloadable PostScript file.


• The Dither Handbook. This provides a cookbook-style manual for analyzing dithered HST data.


• The Synphot Users Guide. This gives a guide to using Synphot, a package that simulates photometric and spectroscopic data, allowing users to predict count rates, exposure times and signal-to-noise ratios.


• The SYNPHOT Data User's Guide. User's Guide for the data-driven aspects of Synphot, describes obsmodes and keywords for HST instruments and supported groundbased photometric systems.


• STSDAS Programmer's Documentation, a collection of manuals for programmers.


• The IRAF doc page.


• The IGI Manual. IGI (Interactive Graphics Interpreter) is an STSDAS task for drawing high quality data plots.