STSDAS v3.3 RELEASE SUMMARY The primary changes incorporated into this release are: 1) Redesigned versions of PyDrizzle and MultiDrizzle are included. In particular, the version of Multidrizzle is the one being used by the HST ACS pipeline. The new versions no longer have any IRAF dependencies (and thus require an update to the STScI Python Libraries--see installation instructions). This release of STSDAS provides PyRAF interfaces to these tasks that allow them to be run from PyRAF, but they can be run completely indpendently of IRAF and PyRAF if necessary. The previous versions of PyDrizzle and Multidrizzle have been renamed to opydriz and omdriz respectively. The older versions will be removed in future releases of STSDAS. Likewise, the drizzle task has been updated to version 3.4 2) Changes to CALSTIS: - Angle parameter added to wavecal task - Can now use engineering products to correct CCD sensitivity for temperature dependence. - Improved algorithm for rejecting bad data in overscan regions (hot columns) - 1-D spectral extraction has improved algorithm for background. - X1D task bug regarding calibration switch settings corrected - Removed bug causing occasional segmentation faults. - New post-processing task SSHIFT: aligns dithered spectral images. - New tasks TRXYEQ, TREQXY, UCRPIX added to convert between pixel coordinates and RA and DEC taking optical distortion into account. - NORMSPFLAT, MKFRINGFLAT, DEFRINGE scripts updated to work with subarrays and binned data, and to work under PyRAF. 3) Changes to CALACS: - Updated to version 4.5.1 - Support for applying spot flats and their shifts was added. - No longer deletes FLT images for the SFL product image in order to support Multidrizzle processing - Bug causing 32 image REPEAT-OBS association to fail was fixed. - New task RUNCALDRIZ added. - aXe was upgraded to v1.4. This version differs in various aspects from previous aXe releases. A new set of High Level Tasks simplifies the user interaction and reduce the number of commands that need to be issued in order to perform a basic data reduction. Another important addition is the aXedrizzle technique which combines for each object the 2D grism images extracted from the individual images to a deep, 2D drizzled grism image before deep 1D spectrum are extracted. Details are available from the aXe web site, http://www.stecf.org/software/aXe/ 4) The reference spectrum for Vega used by SYNPHOT for vegamag has been changed. See the full release notes for details. 5) Changes to ISOPHOTE: - Bug in BMODEL was fixed; and unnecessary prompting from TCALC when using BMODEL and ISOMAP has been suppressed. As in STSDAS v3.2, some new tasks require the use of PyRAF. PyRAF itself has not been upgraded (it is still at v1.1.1) but installations of PyRAF v1.1.1 will need to upgrade the installed libraries to pick up new versions of PyDrizzle and Multidrizzle (see installation instructions). Packages or tasks that have seen significant changes include: analysis.dither hst_calib.acs.calacs .aXe .nicmos .stis .synphot toolbox.imgtools.mstools Packages or tasks that have had minor enhancements of bug fixes include: analysis.isophote graphics.stplot.igi .skymap hst_calib.ghrs Parameter files that have changed (new parameters or new default values, excluding prameters indicating version number changes): analysis/dither/acsdq.par (the following should all be considered new even though some have correspondences in the previous version of stsdas) buildasn.par dqpars.par dqpars_iraf.py multidrizzle.par nicmosdq.par pydrizzle.par stisdq.par tran.par wfpc2dq.par xytosky.par drizzle/blot.par - parameter 'interpol' prompt changed - parameter 'sinscl' added drizzle.par - parameters 'xgeoim', 'ygeoim' added tranback.par - parameters 'xgeoim', 'ygeoim' added traxy.par - parameters 'xgeoim', 'ygeoim' added wcs2dr.par - parameters 'xgeoim', 'ygeoim' added - parameters 'refxgeo', 'refygeo' added omdriz/omdriz.par (formerly multidrizzle in previous release) opydriz/buildasn.par (formerly drizzle in previous release) obuildasn.par opydriz.par oxytosky.par pydrizzle.par xytosky.par hst_calib/acs/axe/af2pet.par - removed parameters 'sci_hdu', 'err_hdu', 'dq_hdu' backest.par - removed parameters 'sci_hdu', 'err_hdu', 'dq_hdu' gol2af.par - renamed parameter 'fwhm' to 'mfwhm' pet2spc.par - removed parameter 'oaf' - added parameters 'drzpath', 'in_af' petcont.par - removed parameter 'in_af' petff.par sex2gol.par - added parameter 'use_direct' stamps.par - changed parameter 'rectified' default - added parameters 'drzpath', 'in_af', 'in_pet', 'out_stp' - removed parameter 'out_root' ctools/ckwstis1.par - added parameter 'tdstab' ckwstis2.par - added parameters 'tdstab', 'ctecorr' ckwstis3.par - added parameter 'tdstab' nicmos/biaseq/biaseq.par - renamed parameter 'dqpar' to 'nicdqpar' pedsky/pedsky.par - renamed parameter 'dqpar' to 'nicdqpar' pedsub/pedsub.par - renamed parameter 'dqpar' to 'nicdqpar' stis/wavecal - added parameter 'angle' _cs4 - added parameter 'angle' mkfringeflat - changed parameter 'do_scales' to 'do_scale' synphot/simulators/refdata.par - changed parameters 'grtbl', 'cmptbl' defaults simulators/simcatp.par - changed parameter 'spectrum' default toolbox/imgtools/mstools/msstatistics/msstatistics.par - changed parameter 'nsstatpar' comment nsstatpar.par - added parameter 'acsdqpar'