May 22, 2019

Grinder - IRAF, getting started

This presumes you already have IRAF installed.

Setting up IRAF

Once I have IRAF installed, I make a directory that I start it from: 
cd
mkdir iraf
cd iraf
mkiraf
You don't need to do this (you do need to run mkiraf), but unless IRAF is your entire life (like it is for our oven pilots), it is nice to have the various IRAF related files (login.cl and the uparm directory) isolated in their own directory.

You only do this once for each user.

You can certainly run IRAF in any terminal window, but if you want to use any IRAF commands that do graphics, you will probably want to launch an xgterm and then start IRAF in it using the following commands: 

cd iraf
cl
Type "logout" to exit IRAF.

loginuser.cl

Along with login.cl, you are also allowed to have loginuser.cl A good thing to do with loginuser.cl is to put the names of all the packages you use (like mirror and scopes) and follow with "keep" so that IRAF automatically loads the packages you always use.

Some random tips on IRAF use

If you want to display images, you will need to start ximtool, or better yet these days, ds9.

The "flpr" command is used as a magic bullet to cure weird issues. The textbook definition is that this flushes the process cache. What I think this means is that IRAF process management is buggy and that forcing IRAF to start new processes from scratch often fixes issues.

Have any comments? Questions? Drop me a line!

Tom's home page / tom@mmto.org