Software Supported by the SIE

Note

This page offers a list of all the software managed by the SIE de Investigacion. Click on the package name to go to the corresponding web page with detailed information. The installation of some of the less used (or more troublesome) packages will be done only upon request by a user.

All of the installed packages run on Ubuntu 22.04 x86_64, the current distribution which is being installed in all Linux desktops and (most) laptops. In the "Type" column, "Loc" means that the package has been installed locally, while "OS" means that it was installed from the Ubuntu package repositories.

A very comprehensive and well organized Astronomical Software Directory can be found in http://www.skysoft.org/

Reduction of Astronomical Data - General Packages

Software	Version	Type	Description
AIPS++	Installed upon request	Loc	Astronomical Information Processing System.
CASA	6.6.3	Loc	Common Astronomy Software Applications
CIAO	4.17	Loc	System for the analysis of data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory and from other, non-X-ray missions.
IRAF	2.16.1	Loc	Image Reduction and Analysis Facility.
GILDAS	Sep25a	Loc	Collection of state-of-the-art softwares oriented toward (sub-millimeter) radioastronomical applications.
HEAsoft	6.36	Loc	Software suite developed at HEASARC.
MIDAS	21FEBpl1.0	OS	ESO Munich Image Data Analysis System.
PyRAF	2.2.1	Loc	Set of Python routines and C extensions for general astronomical data analysis infrastructure. PyRAF is a command language for IRAF based on Python.
Starlink	2021A	Loc	A compilation of Astronomical Softwares for UK astronomers.
THELI	3.1.3	Loc	Tool for the automated reduction of astronomical images.

Reduction of Astronomical Data - Specialized Tools

Software	Version	Type	Description
ALFA	2.2	OS	Automated Line Fitting Algorithm
Astrometry.net	0.94	OS	Tool to create correct, standards-compliant astrometric meta-data for every useful astronomical image ever taken.
BBarolo	1.7	OS	3D-Based Analysis of Rotating Object via Line Observations: tool to create correct, standards-compliant astrometric meta-data for every useful astronomical image ever taken.
Cloudy	C25.00	Loc	Photoionization simulations for the discriminating astrophysicist since 1978.
Dolphot	n/a	Loc	stellar photometry package that was adapted from HSTphot for general use.
DAOPHOT	n/a	Loc	Computer program for crowded-field stellar photometry.
Doppler	1.0.3	Loc	Tom Marsh's NDF-based routines for carrying out maximum entropy based Doppler tomography.
Ensemble	1.2	Loc	Package to analyze a set of measurements of many stars taken from many images, and to find the optimal photometric solution.
GALFIT	3.0.5	Loc	A galaxy/point source fitting algorithm that fits 2-D parameterized, axisymmetric, functions directly to images.
GNU Astronomy Utilities	0.23	Loc	GNU package consisting of various programs and library functions for the manipulation and analysis of astronomical data.
Healpix	3.82	Loc	Software for pixelization, hierarchical indexation, synthesis, analysis, and visualization of data on the sphere.
Imfit	1.9.0	OS	Program for fitting astronomical images -- especially images of galaxiesS.
Indexf	4.3	Loc	C++ program that measures line-strength indices (not only the Ca II indices) in fully calibrated FITS spectra.
Karma	1.7.25	Loc	Structured Library for Signal and Image Processing and Visualisation (useful for radio-astronomy).
Miriad	20190404	Loc	Multichannel Image Reconstruction, Image Analysis and Display.
Molecfit	N/A	Loc	Software tool to correct astronomical observations for atmospheric absorption features. Will be installed upon request.
Molly	1.1.8	Loc	Program for the analysis of 1D astronomical spectra, deveoped by Tom Marsh.
MOOG	Nov2019	Loc	Code that performs a variety of LTE line analysis and spectrum synthesis tasks.
NEAT	2.3-2	Loc	Program for calculating chemical abundances in photoionised nebulae.
P3D	2.7.0.1	Loc	Data-reduction tool that is intended to be used with data of fiber-fed integral field spectrographs (IFSs)
Pamela	1.0.9	Loc	Package written by Tom Marsh for 2D to 1D spectrum extraction.
PSFEx	3.17.1	OS	PSF (PSF Extractor) extracts models of the Point Spread Function (PSF) from FITS images processed with SExtractor, and measures the quality of images.
REDUCEME	5.0	Loc	Analysis of long-slit spectroscopic data.
rmodel	3.2.3	Loc	Program that determines stellar population parameters (e.g. age, metallicity, IMF slope,...), using as input line-strength indices.
SCAMP	2.14.1	OS	The TERAPIX calibration tool.
SExtractor	2.29.0	OS	Source Extractor - Builds a catalog of objects from an astronomical image.
SkyMaker	4.2.0	Loc	Program that simulates astronomical images.
SoFiA 2	2.6.0	Loc	HI Source Finding Application (SoFiA)
SWarp	2.41.5	OS	Program that resamples and co-adds together FITS images using any arbitrary astrometric projection defined in the WCS standard.
ULTRACAM	9.16	Loc	Software to enable reduction and analysis of ULTRACAM multi-CCD data, deveoped by Tom Marsh.
VAPOR	3.9.1	Loc	Visualization and Analysis Platform for Ocean, Atmosphere, and Solar Researchers.
VisIt	3.4.1	Loc	Open Source, interactive, scalable, visualization, animation and analysis tool.
ZEBRA	1.10	Loc	ZEBRA combines and extends several of the classical approaches to produce accurate photometric redshifts.
Zphot-Hyperz	1.1	Loc	New and public photometric redshift code.

Proposals and Observations Planning

Software	Version	Type	Description
APT	Installed upon request		The Astronomer's Proposal Tool aims at improving the HST proposal preparation process.
p2pp	Installed upon request		Phase 2 Preparation Tool used to create and manage Observation Blocks at ESO telescopes.
Starpos	Feb 2004	Loc	A program to plot altitude versus time for a list of objects and for a given night.
TinyTim	6.3	No longer available	Software package for generating Hubble Space Telescope (HST) model point spread functions.
XEphem	4.2.0	Loc	"Star-charting, sky-simulating, ephemeris-generating" package.

General Data Analysis

Software	Version	Type	Description
GDL	1.0.1	OS	Free/libre/open source incremental compiler compatible with IDL (ie. runs IDL programs).
IDL	9.0	Loc	Software for data analysis, visualization and application developments.
Mathematica	14.0	Loc	Integrated environment for numeric and symbolic computation and 2D and 3D graphics.
Octave	6.4.0	OS	High-level language, primarily intended for numerical computations.
R	4.1.2	OS	Language and environment for statistical computing and graphics.
RStudio	2025.05.1	OS	Integrated development environment (IDE) for the R language.
Sage	9.5-4	OS	Free open-source mathematics software system that combines the power of many existing open-source packages into a common Python-based interface.
Yacas	1.3.6	OS	Easy to use, general purpose Computer Algebra System.
Yorick	2.2.04	OS	Interpreted programming language for scientific simulations or calculations, interactive scientific graphics, and reading, writing, or translating large files of numbers.

Display and Graphics Packages

Software	Version	Type	Description
Aladin	12.060	Loc	Interactive software that allows to visualize digitized astronomical images, superimpose entries from catalogs, and access data archives.
Blender	3.0.1	OS	Open source software for 3D modeling, animation, rendering, post-production, interactive creation and playback.
DS9	8.5	Loc	Astronomical imaging and data visualization application.
Fitscut	1.4.4	OS	Tool designed to extract cutouts from FITS image format files.
fv	5.5.4	Loc	Software tool for viewing and editing any FITS format image or table, developed at HEASARC.
g3data	1.5.2	OS	Tool used for extracting data from graphs.
GAIA/SkyCat	4.4.9	Loc	Image display that can also access catalogs and archive data.
Gifsicle	1.93	OS	UNIX command-line tool for creating, editing, and getting information about GIF images and animations.
Gnuplot	5.4	OS	Command-driven interactive function plotting program.
Grace	5.1.25	OS	WYSIWYG tool to make two-dimensional plot of scientific data.
JHelioviewer	4.6.3	Loc	Visualization software for solar image data.
QFitsView	4.1	Loc	FITS file viewer similar to SAOimage, DS9, and the like, based on the cross-platform QT library.
STIFF	2.4.0	OS	Program that converts scientific FITS images to the more popular TIFF format for illustration purposes.
Supermongo	2.4.36	Loc	Interactive plotting program with a flexible command language.
Xfig	3.2.8b	OS	Interactive drawing tool running on most Unix platforms. Can edit postscript files. Includes fig2dev converter.
XImtool	2.0beta	Loc	Image display from the IRAF group.

Editors and Text Processors

Software	Version	Type	Description
Emacs	27.1	OS	Advanced, customizable, extensible real-time display editor.
JabRef	3.8.2	OS	Java-based open source bibliography reference manager.
Kile	4.2.9	OS	Application for KDE, that integrates many tools needed to develop documents with LaTeX, in just one application.
LaTeX	TeX Live 2021.20220204-1	OS	Typesetting system for high-quality scientific and mathematical documents.
LaTeX2HTML	2021.2	OS	Conversion tool from LaTeX to HTML format.
LyX	2.3.6	OS	Cprivate and flexible writing app that adapts to the way you thinkombines the high quality of a real typesetting system, with the comfortable interface of a word processor.
Mendeley	2.122.0	Loc	Academic software for bibliography creation and research paper management.
Obsidian	1.6.7	Loc	Private and flexible writing app that adapts to the way you think.
Texmaker	5.0.3	OS	Free LaTeX editor, that integrates many tools needed to develop documents with LaTeX, in just one application.
HTML Tidy	5.6.0	OS	Open source program and library for checking and generating clean XHTML/HTML.
XEmacs	21.4.24	OS	Emacs: The Next Generation.
Zotero	7.0.24	Loc	Easy-to-use tool to collect, organize, annotate, cite, and share research

Programming and Libraries

Software	Version	Type	Description
Bazaar	3.2.1	OS	Decentralized Revision Control System designed to be easy for developers and end users alike.
CFITSIO	4.0.0	OS	Subroutine interface for reading and writing file in FITS.
gcc/g++	11.4.0	OS	The GNU project C and C++ compiler.
gfortran	11.4.0	OS	Free Fortran 95/2003/2008 compiler for the GNU Compiler Collection.
GSL	2.7.1	OS	Numerical library for C and C++ programmers.
Intel oneAPI	2025.2.0	Loc	Intel oneAPI Base and HPC toolkits.
Julia	1.11.6	Loc	high-level, general-purpose dynamic programming language.
MPICH	4.0-3	OS	High-performance and widely portable implementation of the Message Passing Interface (MPI) standard.
NVIDIA HPC SDK	25.7	Loc	Comprehensive Suite of Compilers, Libraries and Tools for HPC
PGPLOT	5.2	OS	Fortran- or C-callable, device-independent graphics package.
Plotutils	2.6-11	OS	Amongst other things, a powerful C/C++ function library for exporting 2-D vector graphics in many file formats, both vector and raster.
plusFORT	8.04	Loc	Multi-purpose suite of tools for analyzing and improving Fortran programs.
PyCharm	2024.2.1	Loc	The Python IDE for data science and web development
Python	3.10	OS	Programming language that lets you work more quickly and integrate your systems more effectively.
Visual Studio Code	1.104.1	Loc	standalone source code editor.
WCSLIB	8.2.2	Loc	C library, supplied with a full set of Fortran wrappers, that implements the "World Coordinate System" (WCS) standard in FITS.
WCSTools	3.9.5	OS	Set of programs and libraries to work with the World Coordinate System.

Access to Catalogs and Archives, VO tools

Software	Version	Type	Description
CDSClient	3.84	Loc	Set of C and csh routines which allow to query some databases located at CDS or on mirrors over the network.
SPLAT	3.11-3	Loc	Graphical tool for displaying, comparing, modifying and analyzing astronomical spectra stored in NDF, FITS and TEXT files as well as the new NDX format.
STILTS	3.5-2	Loc	Set of command-line tools to deal with the processing of tabular data, such as astronomical tables and object catalogues.
Telarchive	2.0.3	Loc	Python command-line program for searching multiple public telescope archives.
TOPCAT	4.10-5	Loc	Interactive graphical viewer and editor for tabular data.
VOConvert	1.0	Loc	Tool for converting files from one format to another.
VODesktop	1.3.2	Loc	Launching point for doing science using VO tools.
VOPlot	1.8	Loc	Tool for visualizing astronomical data in the VOTable format.
VOSpec	6.8	Loc	Tool to handle VO-compatible spectra.

Detailed Software Information (sorted alphabetically)

AIPS++

Website: http://aips2.nrao.edu/
Description: Astronomical Information Processing System. Primarily targeted at radio astronomy, it provides tasks for calibration, editing, image formation, image enhancement, and analysis of images and other data streams.
Version installed: Fedora-26:This package will be installed upon request.
Usage: TBD
Upgrade Notes:
Manuals and Documentation: See the AIPS++ website.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124
Additional Info: Obsoleted package, superseded by CASA.

Aladin

Website: http://aladin.u-strasbg.fr/
Description: Interactive software sky atlas allowing the user to visualize digitized images of any part of the sky, to superimpose entries from astronomical catalogs or personal user data files, and to interactively access related data and information from the SIMBAD, NED, VizieR, or other archives for all known objects in the field.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 12.0 (installed in April 2023).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: module load aladin
Upgrade Notes:
Manuals and Documentation: See the documentation section in the Aladin website, or use the "Help..." button.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

ALFA

Website: https://www.nebulousresearch.org/codes/alfa/
Description: Automated Line Fitting Algorithm.
Version installed: Ubuntu-22.04: 2.2(installed in March 2023).
Usage: At the command prompt, type : module load alfa; then type man alfa for usage help
Upgrade Notes: N/A
Manuals and Documentation: See the ALFA Manual.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

APT

Website: https://www.stsci.edu/scientific-community/software/astronomers-proposal-tool-apt
Description: The Astronomer's Proposal Tool aims at improving the HST proposal preparation process.
Version installed: Ubuntu 18.04: This package will be installed upon request; version varies depending on Observing Cycle.
Usage: TBD
Upgrade Notes:
Manuals and Documentation: Visit the the APT website.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office 1.124

Astrometry.net

Website: Astrometry.net website
Description: Tool to create correct, standards-compliant astrometric meta-data for every useful astronomical image ever taken.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: v0.93 (installed in March 2023).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: module load astrometry.net Many commands and utilities are available, check the astrometry.net README file
Upgrade Notes:
Manuals and Documentation: See the README file.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124
Additional Info: Should you experience issues with the fits2fits.py script, please run the command adding the --no-fits2fits flag.

Bazaar

Website: http://wiki.bazaar.canonical.com/QuickHackingWithBzr
Description: Version control system that is a compelling replacement for CVS in the open source community.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: v3.2.1 (from the Ubuntu repositories).
Usage: Type: bzr # to get a list of basic commands bzr help commands # to get more detailed usage help
Upgrade Notes: See the Bazaar Release Notes.
Manuals and Documentation: Visit the links in the Bazaar website, browse the Main Documentation Page, or just start from the Bazaar in five minutes tutorial.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office 1.124

BBarolo

Website: https://editeodoro.github.io/Bbarolo
Description: BBarolo, or 3D-Barolo (3D-Based Analysis of Rotating Object via Line Observations), is a tool for fitting 3D tilted-ring models to emission-line data-cubes.
Version installed: Ubuntu-22.04: 1.7 (installed in April 2024).
Upgrade Notes: N/A
Manuals and Documentation: See the BBarolo's documentation.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

Blender

Website: https://www.blender.org/community/
Description: Open source software for 3D modeling, animation, rendering, post-production, interactive creation and playback.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 3.0.1 (from the Ubuntu repositories).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: blender
Upgrade Notes: See the Release Notes.
Manuals and Documentation: The Blender website contains links to FAQ, Tutorials, Community Support, and many other useful pages.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

CASA

Website: https://casa.nrao.edu/casa_gettingstarted.shtml
Description: CASA, the Common Astronomy Software Applications package, is being developed with the primary goal of supporting the data post-processing needs of the next generation of radio astronomical telescopes such as ALMA and EVLA.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: CASA v6.6.3 (installed in April 2024).
Usage: Load first the corresponding module: module load casa Then simply type casapy.
Upgrade Notes: Changes and improvements are described in the CASA 6.6.3 Release Information.
Manuals and Documentation: Look at Getting Started, the CASAGuides Wiki, and the other Docs in Using CASA.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

CDSClient

Website: https://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/doc/catstd-4.htx
Description: The CDSClient package is a set of C and csh routines which allow to query some databases located at CDS or on mirrors over the network.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 3.84 (installed in March 2013).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: module load cdsclient/3.84 A list of all available programs, as well as a short usage description, can be found in the Package Contents section on the CDSClient website.
Upgrade Notes: No changelog or revision notes seem to be available.
Manuals and Documentation: Basic available options for each program can be obtained by executing them with the -help flag, for instance: findgsc -help
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

CFITSIO

Website: CFITSIO website
Description: Subroutine interface library for reading and writing data files in FITS data format.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: v4.0.0 (from the Ubuntu repositories).
Usage: Both the static (libcfitsio.a) and shared (libcfitsio.so) libraries are available. They libraries contain both C and Fortran-wrapper routines. Link with -lcfitsio. You may also need to link with -lm.
Upgrade Notes: See the Log of Changes Made to CFITSIO.
Manuals and Documentation: See the documentation links in the HEASARC CFITSIO website.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; –- tel: 5383 – office: 1.124
Additional Info: CFITSIO includes two useful tools to compress and decompress fits files, called fpack and funpack (see the FPACK website for details), a command to list a fits file header, listhead, plus two commands to copy an image (with optional on-the-fly compression), fitscopy and imcopy. Run these commands with no argument for quick usage help.

CIAO

Website: CIAO website
Description: The remarkable science capabilities of the Chandra X-ray Observatory demanded new, flexible, multi-dimensional software to analyze the data it returned. The result is CIAO, a system that has proven itself useful for the analysis of data from other, non-X-ray missions, because of the mission independence that is the basis of the CIAO design.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: CIAO v4.17 (installed in March 2025).
Usage: First define the following alias: the command prompt, type: alias ciao="source /opt/SIE/heasoft/ciao-4.17/bin/ciao.bash" Then simply type ciao, and CIAO will be setup and ready to use in that terminal window.
Upgrade Notes: Changes and improvements in version 4.16 are described in What's New for CIAO.
Manuals and Documentation: Look at the Introduction to CIAO Tools and Applications page, and visit the Analysis Guides page.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

Cloudy

Website: https://gitlab.nublado.org/cloudy/cloudy/-/wikis/home
Description: "Photoionization simulations for the discriminating astrophysicist since 1978".
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04 : C25.00 (installed in October 2025).
Usage: Load first the corresponding module: module load cloudy For further explanations and advanced usage details please visit the Cloudy website.
Upgrade Notes: See the New in C25 page.
Manuals and Documentation: Please browse the Cloudy website.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

DAOPHOT

Website: DAOPHOT II website
Description: DAOPHOT is a computer program for crowded-field stellar photometry.
Version installed: Ubuntu 18.04: n/a (installed in April 2019).
Usage: From the command line, type: module load daophot
Upgrade Notes: N/A
Manuals and Documentation: You can find a manual in /opt/iraf/daophot/Ubuntu1804/daophotii.ps and a cookbook in /opt/iraf/daophot/Ubuntu1804/cook3.1.ps. You can also find several primers and other DAOPHOT-related documents in the Web, just Google them up.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124
Additional Info: Because of license restrictions, we cannot make the source code available to other users.

Dolphot

Website: http://americano.dolphinsim.com/dolphot/
Description: DOLPHOT is a stellar photometry package that was adapted from HSTphot for general use.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 2.0 (installed in November 2024).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: module load dolphot
Upgrade Notes: N/A
Manuals and Documentation: See the Dolphot 2.0 manual (PDF file).
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124
Additional Info: N/A

Doppler

Website: Doppler website
Description: Software written by Tom Marsh for carrying out maximum entropy0 based Doppler tomography.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04 : 1.0.3 (installed in April 2023).
Usage: From the commadn line type: module load doppler directory.
Upgrade Notes:
Manuals and Documentation: See Tom Marsh's Doppler page.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

DS9

Website: https://ds9.si.edu/doc/faq.html
Description: SAOImage DS9 is an astronomical imaging and data visualization application. Can be used with IRAF.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 8.3 (installed in May 2022).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: ds9 Do not start DS9 from inside IRAF. Start it before you launch IRAF or PyRAF, or from another terminal.
Upgrade Notes: A detailed list of all changes and improvements is available at the DS9 version 8.3 Release Notes page.
Manuals and Documentation: Use the "help" button in the DS9 window, see the Reference Manual and read the FAQ.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon - nicola.caon@iac.es; - tel: 5383 - office: 1.124
Additional Info: Note for IRAF users: "Due to the unique relationship between DS9 and IRAF, if you use the imexamine task, you can take advantage of a special feature of DS9. Instead of loading the image from IRAF with the display task, load the image directly into DS9. Then, from the cl prompt, invoke imexamine without a filename. IRAF will ask DS9 for the current filename and use it for analysis. This approach provides serveral advantages over previous methods. First, it will work with compound fits images such as mosaics, data cubes, and rgb images. Second, the image display includes true image data and WCS information, not the approximated data from IRAF."

Emacs

Website: Emacs website
Description: Emacs is an "advanced, self-documenting, customizable, extensible real-time display editor".
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: v27.1 (from the Ubuntu repositories).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: emacs The behaviour of Emacs can be customized by the file /home/user/.emacs, and by setting resources (colours, fonts, etc) in /home/user/.Xdefaults
Upgrade Notes:
Manuals and Documentation: See the Unix man page. Or, for datailed info, click on Help in the Emacs window. A huuuge GNU Emacs Manual is also available on-line.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124
Additional Info: An example .emacs file can be found in the SIE Wiki. An alternative editor is XEmacs, sort of a good-looking Emacs with a different flavour. A simpler and maybe now more popular editor is Nedit.

Ensemble

Website: Ensemble website
Description: Software which analyzes a set of measurements of many stars taken from many images. It tries to find the optimal photometric solution, allowing the zero-point of each image to float to the level which brings the stars into the best agreement.
Version installed: Fedora-26: 0.7 (installed in October 2008).
Usage: From the command line type: module load ensemble
Upgrade Notes: Read the NEWS for latest version.
Manuals and Documentation: Read the HTML Manual.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

FIMS

Website: FIMS website
Description: FORS Instrumental Mask Simulator (FIMS) is a GAIA/SkyCat plugin to specify the FORS instrumental setup (e.g. the 19 slit positions in MOS) during Phase II Proposal Preparation.
Version installed: This package is only installed if some user requests it. Version number varies according to the Observing Period.
Usage: TBD
Upgrade Notes:
Manuals and Documentation: Follow the links in the FORS User Manual.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

Fitscut

Website: Fitscut website
Description: Tool designed to extract cutouts from FITS image format files. FITS, PNG, and JPEG output types are supported.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 1.4.4 (from the Ubuntu repositories).
Usage: At the command prompt type: fitscut fitscut --help for help.
Upgrade Notes: Not available
Manuals and Documentation: Not much help seems to be available, besides that obtained by the command above.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

Fv

Website: https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/software/ftools/fv/tutorial/fv_guide.html
Description: Software tool for viewing and editing any FITS format image or table, developed at HEASARC.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 5.5 (installed in February 2023).
Usage: At the command prompt type: module load fv
Upgrade Notes: Some notes about items new in version 5.5 are found in the Fv Features page.
Manuals and Documentation: Use the help command, read the User's Guide, or visit the other links in the Fv website.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

g3data

Website: http://www.frantz.fi/software/g3data.php
Description: g3data is used for extracting data from graphs. In publications graphs often are included, but the actual data is missing. g3data makes the extracting process much easier.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 1.5.2 (from the Ubuntu repositories).
Usage: At the command prompt type: g3data
Upgrade Notes: See the g3data website for a changelog (and some screenshots) for newer version 1.5.
Manuals and Documentation: Visit the g3data website
SIE contact: Nicola Caon - nicola.caon@iac.es; - tel: 5383 - office: 1.124

GAIA/SkyCat

Website: GAIA/SkyCat website
Description: Graphical Astronomy and Image Analysis Tool that provides the usual facilities of image display tools, plus more astronomically useful ones such as aperture & optimal photometry, contouring, source detection, surface photometry, arbitrary region analysis, celestial coordinate readout, calibration and modification, grid overlays, blink comparison, defect patching and the ability to query on-line (WWW) catalogues.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 4.4.9 (installed in March 2023; it comes with the Starlink 2021A release).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: gaia
Upgrade Notes: Changes and improvements in GAIA v4.4.9 can be found in the 2021A Release Notes.
Manuals and Documentation: See the on-line help, or the GAIA Cookbook.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124
Additional Info: It seems that GAIA and SkyCat are essentially the same application (more precisely, GAIA is derived from SkyCat).

GALFIT

Website: http://users.obs.carnegiescience.edu/peng/work/galfit/TOP10.html
Description: A galaxy/point source fitting algorithm that fits 2-D parameterized, axisymmetric, functions directly to images.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 3.0.5 (installed in April 2023).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: module load galfit Files EXAMPLE.INPUT and EXAMPLE.CONSTRAINTS in the /opt/SIE/galfit/galfit-3.0.5/galfit-example/ directory can be used as templates for your own input and constraints files.
Upgrade Notes: Read the New GALFIT features to learn about new features in this version.
Manuals and Documentation: Read the User's Manual (PDF file). See also the links in the GALFIT website: especially interesting are the Advisory and the Top 10 Rules of Thumb.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124
Additional Info: NOTA BENE: The input file has changed between Version 3 and Version 2. Parameters 8, 9, and 10 in Version 2 are now called 9, 10, and C0 in Version 3. C0 is now an optional parameter, so it is only visible when specified explicitly and given a value.

gcc/g++

Website: gcc/g++ website
Description: GNU project C and C++ compiler
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: release 11.3.0 (from the Ubuntu repositories).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: gcc or g++
Upgrade Notes: See the GCC 11 Release Series to check changes and access documentation.
Manuals and Documentation: See the GCC Manuals. Quick usage help on the usage can be obtained by typing gcc --help, or by reading the man page: man gcc.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124
Additional Info: The -m32 flag can be used to produce 32bit binaries.

GDL

Website: https://github.com/gnudatalanguage/gdl
Description: Free/libre/open source incremental compiler compatible with IDL (ie. runs IDL programs).
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 1.0.1 (from the Ubuntu repositories).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: gdl
Upgrade Notes: See the NEWS.
Manuals and Documentation: See the GDL on Github website for relevant information.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

Gfortran

Website: Gfortran website
Description: Free Fortran 95/2003 compiler for the GNU Compiler Collection.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: release 11.3.0 (comes bundled with the OS).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: gfortran
Upgrade Notes: See the What's new in gfortran? page.
Manuals and Documentation: See the Using GNU Fortran manual. Quick usage help on the usage can be obtained by typing gfortran --help, or by reading the man page: man gfortran.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124
Additional Info: The -m32 flag can be used to produce 32bit binaries.

Gifsicle

Website: Gifsicle website
Description: UNIX command-line tool for creating, editing, and getting information about GIF images and animations.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 1.93 (from the Ubuntu repositories).
Usage: Three commands are available: gifsicle: manipulates GIF images and animations; it's the main program. gifdiff: compares two GIF images or animations. gifview: lightweight GIF viewer.
Upgrade Notes: See the gifsicle change page
Manuals and Documentation: Run the above commands with the --help flag, or consult the gifsicle man page.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124
Additional Info: A user suggests that the command be used in this form: gifsicle *.gif > movie avoiding the ".gif" extension for the movie file (as otherwise it could end up inside itself, so to speak). Also, the gif files should be ordered numerically.

GILDAS

Website: https://www.iram.fr/IRAMFR/GILDAS/
Description: The "Grenoble Image and Line Data Analysis Software", is a collection of state-of-the-art softwares oriented toward (sub-)millimeter radioastronomical applications (either single-dish or interferometer). It is daily used to reduce all data acquired with the IRAM 30m telescope and the NOrthern Extended Millimeter Array (NOEMA).
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: Sep25a (installed in September 2025).
Usage: Load first the corresponding module: module load gildas/sep25a
Upgrade Notes: An exhaustive changelog is kept in the GILDAS News page.
Manuals and Documentation: See a number of manuals in the GILDAS website.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

GIPSY

Website: http://www.astro.rug.nl/~gipsy/
Description: The Groningen Image Processing System is a highly interactive software system for the reduction and display of astronomical data.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: version as of April 2023.
Usage: At the command prompt, type: gipsy
Upgrade Notes: A list of the main important changes and improvements is available in the GIPSY News Page.
Manuals and Documentation: See the GIPSY website in Groningen.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124.

Gnuastro

Website: https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuastro/manual/html_node/Tutorials.html#Tutorials
Description: The GNU Astronomy Utilities (Gnuastro) is an official GNU package consisting of various programs and library functions for the manipulation and analysis of astronomical data. All the programs share the same basic command-line user interface for the comfort of both the users and developers.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 0.23 (installed in July 2024).
Usage: First load the corresponding module: module load gnuastro, then type the name of any of the Gnuastro's programs (see the Gnuastro programs list)
Upgrade Notes: See the GNU Astronomy Utilities News.
Manuals and Documentation: Read the Tutorials or the Gnuastro book.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124
Additional Info: For backward compatibility, older releases might also be available, type module avail gnuastro to obtain their list.

gnuplot

Website: http://www.gnuplot.info/faq/
Description: Command-driven interactive function plotting program. It can be used to plot functions and data points in both two- and three-dimensional plots in many different formats, and will accommodate many of the needs of today's scientists for graphic data representation.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 5.4.2 (from the Ubuntu repositories).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: gnuplot
Upgrade Notes: Read the Release Notes for v5.4.7 (includes notes for previous releases).
Manuals and Documentation: See the links in the gnuplot documentation page, the gnuplot Tutorials or the FAQ page. You can also type "help" at the gnuplot> prompt.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

Grace

Website: https://plasma-gate.weizmann.ac.il/Grace/doc/UsersGuide.html
Description: Tool to make two-dimensional plots of numerical data, combining the convenience of a GUI with the power of a scripting language. It's the successor of Xmgr.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04 : 5.1.25 (from the Ubuntu repositories).
Usage: At the command prompt type: xmgrace
Upgrade Notes: See the Grace list of changes.
Manuals and Documentation: Some of the items in the "Help" menu will attempt to open the on-line manual (html format) in a browser.. Please visit the comprehensive documentation in the Grace website, where a FAQ, a Tutorial and a User's Guide are available.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

GSL

Website: GSL website
Description: The GNU Scientific Library (GSL) is a numerical library for C and C++ programmers. The library provides a wide range of mathematical routines such as random number generators, special functions and least-squares fitting. There are over 1000 functions in total.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 2.7.1 (from the Ubuntu repositories).
Usage: To see how to compile or link with this library, At the command prompt type: gsl-config --help and follow the indications.
Upgrade Notes: See What is new in gsl.
Manuals and Documentation: See the on-line Reference Manual.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

GVim

Website: GVim website
Description: GVim is a GUI-enabled port of Vim. It provides a nice GUI, with menubar, toolbar, popups menus and much functionalities.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 8.2.4919 (from the Ubuntu repositories).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: gvim or gview
Upgrade Notes: Launch GVim and type: :help version8.
Manuals and Documentation: Use the Help menu in the GVim window.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

HEALPix

Website: https://sourceforge.net/projects/healpix/
Description: Package containing a suite of programs which include: programs for fast simulation and analysis of full-sky maps of CMB temperature and polarization anisotropy (sky maps preview) up to sub-arcminute angular resolution (your computer's RAM permitting, see benchmarks); routines to read and write the FITS formatted map data sets, and allowing the IDL-based display of your results, and many more.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: v3.82 (installed in April 2024).
Usage: Load first the HEALpix module: module load healpix Available commands and their usage can be found in the links in the HEALPix Software Documentation page.
Upgrade Notes: Some of the major improvements in this version can be found in the Healpix_3.82 webpage.
Manuals and Documentation: Start from the HEALPix website, and follow the links therein contained.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124
Additional Info: This software is mainly used by the VSA group at the IAC.

HEASoft

Website: https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/lheasoft/
Description: Software suite developed at HEASARC, consisting of FTOOLS, FV, XANADU and XSTAR.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: HEASoft v6.36 (installed in October 2025).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: module load heasoft to enable usage of HEASoft programs. We recommend that in this session you only run HEASoft programs, as the environment thus created may produce conflicts with other software packages.
Upgrade Notes: Changes and improvements in the latest version are described at length in Release Notes for HEASoft.
Manuals and Documentation: Use the help commands, or visit the various documentation links in the HEASoft website.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124
Additional Info: It's a pretty large and complex software which includes several subpackages. We recommend that you read the relevant documentation before using it.

HTML Tidy

Website: HTML Tidy website
Description: Web page cleaner. Checks and fixes errors in the HTML code.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 5.6.0 (from the Ubuntu repositories)
Usage: At the command prompt, type: tidy file.html (type tidy -h for a list of all command flags).
Upgrade Notes:
Manuals and Documentation: See the Tidy Web Page.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124
Additional Info: If you write the HTML code by hand, or use a WYSIWYG editor, this is a very useful program to check and validate your pages. N.B. If you page contains errors, but nevertheless it displays correctly in your favorite browser, that is NO guarantee that it will display correctly in all other browsers too! Other useful tools to validate your HTML page are: W3C HTML Validation Service and W3C CSS Validation Service.

IDL

Website: https://www.l3harrisgeospatial.com/Support/Forums/aff/217
Description: IDL is a software for data analysis, visualization and cross-platform application developments. It integrates a powerful, array-oriented language with numerous mathematical analysis and display technique, giving high flexibility.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 9.0 (installed in December 2023). Installed IDL Libraries: Fanning Coyote library, updated in March 2021; IDL astro lib, updated in JMarch 2021; Markwardt IDL Library, updated in April 2019; Motley library, installed in Dec 2009. Additional libraries (not installed by default) are available, for instance see the JHU/APL/S1R IDL Page.
Usage: At the command prompt, type: idl to start idl in command line mode idlde to start the IDL development interface (recommended) idlhelp or idlman to start the GUI help window By default, these commands launch IDL v9.0 If you have problems with colors and are working on a 24-bit display, read the page: IDL FAQs. You can also create your own IDL startup file in order to execute IDL commands automatically every time you start IDL.
Upgrade Notes: See the What's New in IDL 8.9 for a list of new features and updates in IDL v9.0
Manuals and Documentation: Use the online help, or start idlhelp (which does not not pick up any licence). You also can type widget_olh within idl. From time to time, the idlhelp command doesn't open any window (for reasons we fail to understand). If this happens to you, please start idlde and use the Help menu there. Other sources of information are the Harris IDL website, the IDL User Forum, and the D. Fanning Consulting Page which contains many other interesting links. The Links to other Astronomy and IDL related sites provides lists of IDL-related libraries and sites. See also the course given by Alexandre Vazdekis, First Steps in IDL, or R. Kroll's course given quite a few years ago.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124
Additional Info: IDL borrow feature You can borrow an IDL license for off-network use. If interested, do get in touch with us. Floating Licenses: At present, there are 73 floating license "tokens" available in the Unix network, including the CCA. Please do not use more licenses than necessary, at times of high demand (typically from 10am to 5pm on weekdays), and please exit IDL promptly when you are finished. Wavelet Toolkit Several licences for the Wavelet Toolkit are also available (since 16 March 2005). Advanced Math and Stats Module Since September 2009 two floating licenses for this module are available. IDL hanging? Some users have reported that IDL hangs sometimes when starting it from a remote machine, accessed through a ssh connection. The problem seems related to some sort of conflict with the graphics cards and driver in the local and remote machine. We applied a fix consisting in disabling the GL driver in a separate patched IDL installation, as this fix may have a negative impact on the speed or quality of other regular graphic routines (this workaround will cause IDL to use software based object graphics rendering rather than OpenGL hardware acceleration). To start the patched IDL version, type: idl87p

Imfit

Website: Imfit website
Description: Program for fitting astronomical images -- especially images of galaxies, though it can in principle be used for fitting other sources.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 1.9 (installed in April 2023).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: module load imfit Docs and examples are located in/opt/SIE/imfit/imfit-1.9.0/docs/ and /opt/SIE/imfit/imfit-1.9.0/examples/ respectively.
Upgrade Notes: See the Change Log for Imfit.
Manuals and Documentation: Read the Tutorial, or the paper published in ApJ (2015ApJ...799..226E).
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

indexf

Website: https://indexf.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
Description: C++ program that measures line-strength indices (not only the Ca II indices) in fully calibrated FITS spectra. If required, this program computes index errors resulting from the propagation of random errors (e.g. photon statistics, read-out noise) and estimates the effect of errors on radial velocity.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 4.3 (installed in April 2023).
Usage: First type: module load indexf, then the command is: indexf keyword1=keyval1 keyword2=keyval2 ... Just type indexf to display a short usage help.
Upgrade Notes: None available
Manuals and Documentation: Detailed explanations on the usage of this program can be found in the indexf website.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

Intel oneAPI

Website: https://software.intel.com/content/www/us/en/develop/tools/oneapi.html
Description: "oneAPI is an open, unified programming model built on standards to simplify development and deployment of data-centric workloads across CPUs, GPUs, FPGAs and other accelerators."
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04 : version 2025.2.0 (installed in July 2025). It includes both the Base and the HPC toolkits.
Upgrade Notes: See the Intel oneAPI Base Toolkit Release Notes and the Intel oneAPI HPC Toolkit Release Notes.
Manuals and Documentation: To access the extensive documentation, visit the Documentation Library.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

IRAF

Website: https://research.iac.es/sieinvens/SINFIN/CursoIraf/Intro.php
Description: IRAF is a general Image Reduction and Analysis Facility providing a wide range of image processing tools for the user.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 2.16.1 (installed in February 2023) with STSDAS+TABLES v3.17.
Usage: At the command prompt, type: ecl64 First-time users should execute the command mkiraf at the host level in their ${HOME}/iraf directory.
Upgrade Notes: N/A
Manuals and Documentation: All information you wish to have about IRAF can be found at iraf.net, which also contains a very helpful Users Forum. Also, the IRAF paso a paso course held at the IAC gives a basic introduction to IRAF, and contains a list of several manuals for beginners and advanced users.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124
Additional Info: IRAF contains, besides its "core" NOAO software and TABLES+STSDAS, several external packages developed outside NOAO. For a concise list with a brief description of the most important packages installed here at the IAC, see the IRAF External Packages @ IAC page. The relevant environment variables for IRAF are: iraf=/opt/iraf/iraf-2.16.1/ IRAFARCH=linux64 (for RedHat/Fedora/Ubuntu x86_64). If you compile a program that links to IRAF libraries (for instance standalone Daophot), such libraries can be found in the directories: /opt/iraf/iraf-2.16.1/irafbin/bin.linux64/ /opt/iraf/iraf-2.16.1/iraf/unix/bin.linux64/ SYNPHOT Data: In order to be able to access the SYNPHOT Data directory, include the following instruction in your login.cl or loginuser.cl file: crrefer="/opt/iraf/synphotdata/" Apropos task: to enable the apropos task, please include the following instruction in your login.cl or loginuser.cl file: task apropos = stsdas$apropos.cl

JabRef

Website: JabRef website
Description: Java-based open source bibliography reference manager. The native file format used by JabRef is BibTeX, the standard LaTeX bibliography format.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 3.8.2 (from the Ubuntu repository).
Usage: To launch JabRef, at the command prompt type: jabref
Upgrade Notes: See the Release of JabRef 3.8.2 webpage.
Manuals and Documentation: See the Documentation, the FAQ, or just use the Help Menu in the JabRef window.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

JHelioviewer

Website: https://www.jhelioviewer.org/
Description: JHelioviewer: visualization software for solar image data based on the JPEG 2000 compression standard.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 4.6.3 (installed in April 2024).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: module load jhelioviewer
Upgrade Notes: Read the Revision history for JHelioviewer.
Manuals and Documentation: Read the JHelioviewer User Manual.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

Julia

Website: https://julialang.org/
Description: Julia is a high-level, general-purpose dynamic programming language, most commonly used for numerical analysis and computational science.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 1.11.6 (installed in September 2025).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: module load julia and then: julia
Upgrade Notes: See the Julia v1.11 Release Notes.
Manuals and Documentation: See the extensive Julia 1.11 Documentation.
SIE contact: Ángel de Vicente – angel.de.vicente@iac.es; – tel: 5747 – office: 1.123

Karma

Website: https://www.atnf.csiro.au/computing/software/karma/doc.html
Description: General purpose programmer's toolkit and contains KarmaLib (the structured library and API) and a large number of modules (applications) to perform many standard tasks. It seems to be useful for radio-astronomy data.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 1.7.25 (installed in April 2023).
Usage: Start Karma by typing first the following commands: export KARMABASE="/opt/karma/karma-1.7.25" source $KARMABASE/.karmarc Then you can use all the Karma tasks.
Upgrade Notes: N/A
Manuals and Documentation: See the links in Karma Documentation.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

Kile

Website: https://kile.sourceforge.io/help.php
Description: Kile is an application for KDE, that integrates many tools needed to develop documents with LaTeX, in just one application. It is a "multi-document" version of Kwrite for ".tex" and ".bib" files (and only for these files!). For all the classical editor's functionality, see the Kwrite Handbook.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 2.9.93 (from the Ubuntu repositories).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: kile
Upgrade Notes: N/A
Manuals and Documentation: See the Kile Help page.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

LaTeX

Website: ../CursoLatex/cursolatex99.ps
Description: LaTeX is a typesetting system which is very suitable for producing scientific and mathematical documents of high typographical quality. The system is also suitable for producing all sorts of other documents, from simple letters to complete books.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: TeX Live 2022/dev/Debian (from the Ubuntu repositories)
Usage: At the command prompt, type: latex filename.tex
Upgrade Notes: Some info about the TeXlive release can be found in the TeXLive release history.
Manuals and Documentation: The TeX Users Group begin page and the LaTeX project site are excellent starting points: there you can find pointers todocumentation, help, FAQ, software, style files, etc. Another site collecting manuals and guides is https://mirror.gutenberg-asso.fr/tex.loria.fr/. Also, you can obtain documentation at the command prompt: texdoc document_name where document_name is the name of a latex related document (extension is not necessary); most of them are contained in the TeXlive distribution. For example the names of some important manuals are: epslatex, guide, usrguide, symbols. Finally, the Introduction to LaTeX by Onno Pols gives a basic introduction to LaTeX.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124
Additional Info: LaTeX is included in TeXLive distribution, which also includes other related programs: TeX, pdfTeX, e-TeX, ConTeXt, METAFONT, METAPOST, dvips, xdvi, BibTeX,etc. Other external or local style files, not included in the main distribution, are in a local (texmf-local) directory.

LaTeX2HTML

Website: https://www.latex2html.org/
Description: latex2html is a conversion tool that allows documents written in LaTeX to become part of the World-Wide Web. In addition, it offers an easy migration path towards authoring complex hyper-media documents using familiar word-processing concepts, including the power of a LaTeX-like macro language capable of producing correctly structured HTML tags.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: LaTeX2HTML Version 2021.2 (from the Ubuntu repositories).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: latex2html filename.tex
Upgrade Notes: N/A.
Manuals and Documentation: See the LaTeX2HTML page, for further info and links to documentation.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124
Additional Info: Sometimes you can obtain incorrect results. Mainly it is due to the use of document styles that include new definitions of commands and environments. Also there could be problems in creating or converting images.

Lyx

Website: https://www.lyx.org/Home
Description: Lyx is a program that combines the high quality of a real typesetting system, with the comfortable interface of a word processor. Lyx provides an almost-WYSIWYG view of the document.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 2.3.6 (from the Ubuntu repositories).
Usage: From the Unix prompt, type: lyx filename.lyx (or just omit the filename). Upon startup Lyx may throw out a lot of warnings, but they are pretty harmless, please just ignore them.
Upgrade Notes: See the Lyx 2.3.6 Announcement.
Manuals and Documentation: See the Lyx home page, for further info and links to documentation. Also, you can click on the Help button.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124
Additional Info: You can import and export latex documents, but for some style files you can obtain incorrect results.

Mathematica

Website: Mathematica website
Description: Integrated environment for numeric and symbolic computation, ranging from simple operations to large-scale programming and complex 2D and 3D graphics.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: v14.0.0 (installed in January 2024).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: module load mathematica
Upgrade Notes: For an account of changes and improvements in version 14.0, see the Summary of New and Improved Features in 14.0 webpage.
Manuals and Documentation: The help button provides access to an exhaustive and well organized help database. See the Wolfram website for further information. The Wolfram Blog is also interesting.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124
Additional Info: Why don't the "delete" or "backspace" keys work in Mathematica? Make sure the NumLock is off when using Mathematica under Linux. "The Mathematica Book" is available in the library (IS.3-54).

Mendeley

Website: https://data.mendeley.com/faq
Description: Application that indexes and organizes all of your PDF documents and research papers into your own personal digital bibliography.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 2.122.0 (installed in September 2024).
Usage: To launch Mendeley Desktop, at the command prompt type: module load mendeley
Upgrade Notes: See the Release Notes for Mendeley Desktop (they do not seem to be really up-to-date).
Manuals and Documentation: See the Guides, the FAQ, or just browse the pages linked at the bottom of the Mendeley Website.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

MIDAS

Website: https://www.eso.org/sci/software/esomidas/doc/index.html
Description: The Munich Image Data Analysis System is developed and maintained by the European Southern Observatory. It is a general image processing and analysis software, and is especially useful for the reduction of data acquired at ESO telescopes.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 21FEBpl1.0 (from the Ubuntu repositories).
Usage: Type: inmidas, gomidas, helpmidas (get in touch with us if you need to use a different version).
Upgrade Notes: All important enhancements, new developments and bugfixes can be displayed in MIDAS via the command: Midas> help [News]
Manuals and Documentation: See the ESO-MIDAS Documentation. Details on how to start a MIDAS session can be obtained via the Unix commands man inmidas and man gomidas. As for pymidas, see the PyMIDAS website.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124
Additional Info: Please note that there may be significant changes of formats, commands, options etc. between older and newer MIDAS version. Please consult the MIDAS website, and the links there contained, to find more detailed information about MIDAS, and notes for the latest releases.

Miriad

Website: https://www.atnf.csiro.au/computing/software/miriad/taskindex.html
Description: The "Multichannel Image Reconstruction, Image Analysis and Display" is a toolbox, in the form of an environment with a large set of moderate-sized program which perform individual tasks, involving calibration, mapping, deconvolution and image analysis of interferometric data.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 20220602 (installed in April 2023).
Usage: In order to be able to use Miriad, you have to modify your environment using the commands: export MIR="/opt/miriad/miriad-20220602" source ${MIR}/MIRRC.sh export PATH="${PATH}:${MIRBIN}" (These commands may be included in the .bash_profile file) Then just type miriad.
Upgrade Notes: No release notes or changelogs seem to be available.
Manuals and Documentation: See the Miriad User Guide, the Miriad Task Index, or the Miriad Tutorials.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124
Additional Info: N/A

Molecfit

Website: https://www.eso.org/sci/software/pipelines/skytools/molecfit
Description: Software tool to correct astronomical observations for atmospheric absorption features, based on fitting synthetic transmission spectra to the astronomical data.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: Molecfit is now part of the ESO pipelines, and will be installed locally on the machine upon request by the user.
Usage: Ask us for installation and usage info.
Upgrade Notes: See History in the Molecfit website
Manuals and Documentation: See the User Manual and the Molecfit Tutorial (both PDF files)
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

Molly

Website: Molly website
Description: Program for the analysis of 1D astronomical spectra, developed by Tom Marsh.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 1.1.8 (installed in April 2023).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: module load molly/1.1.8 followed by molly Additional molly-related commands are pca, to compute the principal component analysis of a set of spectra, and molcon, which converts between molly files written under Solaris and Linux.
Upgrade Notes:
Manuals and Documentation: See the molly homepage. From the molly prompt, you can also use type help molly for information about the program, or type help or ? for a command list.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

MOOG

Website: http://www.as.utexas.edu/~chris/moog.html
Description: Code that performs a variety of LTE line analysis and spectrum synthesis tasks. Its typical use is to assist in the determination of the chemical composition of a star.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: November 2019 (installed in March 2023).
Upgrade Notes: nbsp;
Manuals and Documentation: See the MOOG website for more information. Also available is a pdf file describing the code.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124
Additional Info: Strange errors with MOOG? Sometimes MOOG will fail with messages like "driver not found" or other inexplicable errors, while the input files look perfectly fine. The problem may be due to extra characters, such as "^M", in the input files, usually invisible when you list the file or when you open it with emacs, nedit or another text editor. Such characters might be added when the file is sent by email, or perhaps copied by ftp. If you experience such errors, use the command cat -t to list your files. If you see "^M" or similar control characters (usually at the end of each line), remove them with the command dos2unix filename, and try MOOG again.

MPICH

Website: https://github.com/pmodels/mpich/blob/main/doc/wiki/faq/Frequently_Asked_Questions.md
Description: High-performance and widely portable implementation of the Message Passing Interface (MPI) standard.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 4.0 (from the Ubuntu repositories).
Usage: See the User's Guide for usage instructions.
Upgrade Notes: See the MPICH Changes page.
Manuals and Documentation: See the on-line MPICH Docs page, and the FAQ page.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124
Additional Info: The current MPICH version is the one coming bundled with Ubuntu 18.04. An implementation of MPICH is also provided by the PGI compiler suite.

NAG

Website: ./NAG_libraries.php
Description: The NAG Library is the largest commercially available collection of numerical and statistical algorithms in the world.
Version installed: Several implementations of the NAG library are available at the IAC. For more details, see the webpage NAG libraries @ IAC. Latest update: March 2023.
Usage: Please check the NAG libraries @ IAC page where you can find a brief description of each of them, together with links pointing to the Users' Note, where detailed usage instructions are provided. Please note that the NAG libraries are installed inside /opt/NAG/
Upgrade Notes: See the The NAG C Library News, Mark 26 and the NAG Fortran Library News, Mark 26.
Manuals and Documentation: https://www.nag.co.uk/content/nag-library-c (C library) and https://www.nag.co.uk/content/nag-library-fortran (Fortran library) are the starting points for accessing all the available info.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124
Additional Info: We have a site license for unlimited usage of Fortran and C libraries for Linux.

NEAT

Website: https://github.com/rwesson/NEAT
Description: Program for calculating chemical abundances in photoionised nebulae. It can propagate uncertainties and compensate for measurement biases affecting weak lines.
Version installed: Ubuntu-22.04: 2.3 (installed in March 2023).
Usage: At the command prompt, type : module load neat; then type man neat for usage help
Upgrade Notes: N/A
Manuals and Documentation: Full documentation is available on the NEAT website.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

NVIDIA HPC SDK

Website: NVIDIA HPC SDK website
Description: The NVIDIA HPC Software Development Kit (SDK) includes the proven compilers, libraries and software tools essential to maximizing developer productivity and the performance and portability of HPC applications.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: v25.7 (installed in September 2025).
Usage: To use the NVIDIA HPC SDK, load one of the following modules: module load nvhpc module load nvhpc-nompi module load nvhpc-byo-compiler For usage instructions, see the NVIDIA website.
Upgrade Notes: See the Release Notes
Manuals and Documentation: See the extensiveDocumentation.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

Obsidian

Website: Obsidian website
Description: Obsidian is the private and flexible writing app that adapts to the way you think.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 1.6.7 (installed in September 2024).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: module load obsidian and then: obsidian
Upgrade Notes: See the Changelog
Manuals and Documentation: See the Obsidian Help site.
SIE contact: Isaac Alonso Asensio – isaac.alonso.asensio@iac.es – tel: 5450 – office: 1.123
Additional Info: Academic researchers can use Obsidian for free provided their research doesn't contribute to a commercial product.

Octave

Website: https://wiki.octave.org/FAQ
Description: High-level language, primarily intended for numerical computations. It provides a convenient command line interface for solving linear and nonlinear problems numerically, and for performing other numerical experiments using a language that is mostly compatible with Matlab. It may also be used as a batch-oriented language.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 6.4.0 (from the Ubuntu repositories).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: octave (to launch the new GUI) octave-cli (to launch the traditional commad-line mode)
Upgrade Notes: See the GNU Octave 6.4.0 Released webpage.
Manuals and Documentation: See the on-line Manual, and the FAQ page. There are also some further links (Wiki, Help, Books, etc.) in the Octave website.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

P2PP

Website: https://www.eso.org/sci/facilities/lasilla/sciops/observing/p2pp.html
Description: Phase 2 Preparation (P2PP) Tool is used to create and manage Observation Blocks (OBs). These OBs are used to describe observing sequences for a growing number of ESO instruments, both in Visitor Mode and in Service Mode.
Version installed: This package will be installed upon user request. Version number varies depending on the Observing Period.
Usage: TBD
Upgrade Notes:
Manuals and Documentation: See the P2PP webpage.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

P3D

Website: http://p3d.sourceforge.net/
Description: General data-reduction tool that is intended to be used with data of fiber-fed integral field spectrographs (IFSs).
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 2.7.0.1 (installed in April 2023).
Usage: You need to put the following lines in your IDL startup file (deleting lines referring to older versions if present): p3d_path='/opt/harris/idl_local/p3d-2.7.0.1' !path=p3d_path+':'+p3d_path+'/routines:'+!path Then launch IDL and at IDL prompt type: p3d
Upgrade Notes: See the Change log in the Download page
Manuals and Documentation: See the P3D Documentation.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

Pamela

Website: Pamela website
Description: Package written by Tom Marsh for 2D to 1D spectrum extraction which is meant to be used in combination with the Starlink packages 'kappa' and 'figaro'. It implements optimal extraction and computes uncertainty estimates.
Version installed: Ubuntu 18.04: 1.0.9 (installed in April 2019).
Usage: Before using the tasks in the pamela package, please type: /opt/trm/pamela-1.0.9/pamela_aliases You can also include the above instruction in your .profile or .bash_profile file.
Upgrade Notes:
Manuals and Documentation: See Tom Marsh's Pamela page.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

PGPLOT

Website: https://sites.astro.caltech.edu/~tjp/pgplot/subroutines.html
Description: Fortran- or C-callable, device independent graphics package for making simple scientific graphs
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: v5.2 (from the Ubuntu repositories).
Usage: 64-bit libraries: /usr/lib/libpgplot.so (shared). /usr/lib/libcpgplot.so (C library, shared)
Upgrade Notes: See the PGPLOT Status Section in the website
Manuals and Documentation: See the PGPLOT website, where you can find an Annotated List of Subroutines and Subroutine Descriptions
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124
Additional Info: Compile with gfortran. As pgplot was compiled with gfortran, use this same compiler to compile and link your code with pgplot. Using f77 or other old compiler versions will most likely fail with "undefined reference" messages. Using the c-binding. This may be a little tricky. The correct way to do this (in Linux) is: gcc -c program.c gfortran -o program program.o -lcpgplot -lpgplot -lX11 GIF format: The 64-bit GIF driver is buggy, and if you try to save your graphics in a GIF file you can get a "segmentation fault" error. Please save in another format (for instance Postscript).

Plotutils

Website: Plotutils website
Description: The GNU plotutils package contains software for both programmers and technical users. Its centerpiece is libplot, a powerful C/C++ function library for exporting 2-D vector graphics in many file formats, both vector and raster. It can also do vector graphics animations.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 2.6-11 (from the Ubuntu repositories).
Usage: Run info plotutils in your terminal window to obtain detailed information
Upgrade Notes: No Changelogs seem to be available.
Manuals and Documentation: Consult the GNU Plotting Utilities manual, though it appears to be a somewhat old version.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

plusFORT

Website: https://polyhedron.com/?product=plusfort
Description: From Polyhedron Software. Multi-purpose suite of tools for analyzing and improving Fortran programs. It combines restructuring and reformatting with global static analysis, dynamic analysis and many other features in a single powerful package. plusFORT is a one-stop solution for programmers, project managers, and quality assurance engineers working with Fortran source code.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 6.70 (installed in April 2023).
Usage: At the command prompt type: $PFDIR/spag # Fortran Code Restructuring $PFDIR/gxchk # Global Static Analysis $PFDIR/cvranal # A coverage analysis reporting tool. (check the links in https://polyhedron.com/?product=plusfort for more info)
Upgrade Notes: N/A
Manuals and Documentation: Visit the plusFORT website.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124
Additional Info: Licensed software, with an unrestricted departamental license.

PyCharm

Website: PyCharm website
Description: The Python IDE for data science and web development.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 2024.2.1 (installed in September 2024).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: module load pycharm and then: pycharm
Upgrade Notes: See the What's New in PyCharm 2024.2.1 web page.
Manuals and Documentation: See the Getting Started page.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

PyRAF

Website: [PyRAF/stsci_python website](https://iraf-community.github.io/pyraf.htmlPyRAF – <a href=)
Description: stsci_python is a library of Python routines and C extensions that has been developed to provide a general astronomical data analysis infrastructures. It includes PyRAF, a command language for IRAF based on the Python scripting language that can be used in place of the existing IRAF cl.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: PyRAF v2.2.1 (installed in April 2023)
Usage: To start PyRAF, load first the Python module: module load python/3.10, then type: pyraf
Upgrade Notes: See the GitHub PyRAF page.
Manuals and Documentation: See the PyRAF tutorial .
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

Python

Website: Python website
Description: Popular object-oriented language used for both standalone programs and scripting applications in a variety of domains.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 3.10.6 (from the Ubuntu repositories). Many Add-on Modules have also been installed or upgraded.
Usage: At the command prompt, type: python You can also try the Interactive Python Shell by typing: ipython
Upgrade Notes: Python is being constantly developed, and new releases are published every few months. For a changelog of the 3.10 version, see What's New in Python 3.10
Manuals and Documentation: Browse the copious documentation in https://www.python.org/doc/. Also of interest is the https://scipy.org/ site. You can also use the help() command in Python, or pydoc (at the command prompt). If you try the latter command, please notice that the graphical interface may not work properly.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124
Additional Info: There exist many Add-on Modules (Numeric, Scientific, etc.) which expand Python's functionality. An interesting Using Python for Interactive Data Analysis tutorial is available.

QFitsView

Website: https://www.mpe.mpg.de/~ott/dpuser/qfitsview.html
Description: FITS file viewer similar to SAOimage, DS9, and the like. It was written using the cross-platform QT library.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 4.1 (installed in March 2023).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: module load qfitsview
Upgrade Notes: See the QFitsView changelog.
Manuals and Documentation: Use the "Help" menu in the GUI, or browse the QFitsView online documentation.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124
Additional Info: Upon starting QFitsView, you may get an error message like "Cannot open server connection ...". Just ignore it.

R

Website: https://www.r-project.org/
Description: R is a language and environment for statistical computing and graphics. R provides a wide variety of statistical (linear and nonlinear modelling, classical statistical tests, time-series analysis, classification, clustering, ...) and graphical techniques, and is highly extensible. The S language is often the vehicle of choice for research in statistical methodology, and R provides an Open Source route to participation in that activity.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 4.1.2 (from the Ubuntu 22.04 repositories).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: R
Upgrade Notes: See the R SERIES NEWS page.
Manuals and Documentation: See the Documentation section in the R website.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124
Additional Info: There are hundreds of Contributed Packages for R, written by many different authors. Some of these packages implement specialized statistical methods, others give access to data or hardware, and others are designed to complement textbooks. If you need a package which is not among the ones installed by default with R, please get in touch with us.

REDUCEME

Website: https://reduceme.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
Description: Package specially devoted to the analysis of long-slit spectroscopic data, written at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 5.0 (installed in March 2023).
Usage: First load the REDUCEME module by typing: module load reduceme Then you can use all the reduceme tasks. It's best to unload the module when finished: module unload reduceme/5.0.
Upgrade Notes: N/A
Manuals and Documentation: Please visit the REDUCEME website.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124
Additional Info: Some of the programs in the REDUCEME package require a lot of memory to run (some hundred MBs - the most memory hungry seems to be "cleanest"). If the program can't execute (for instance the error message "Killed" is printed), try on another machine with plenty of free memory available.

rmodel

Website: https://rmodel.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
Description: Program written in FORTRAN that determines stellar population parameters (e.g. age, metallicity, IMF slope,...), using as input line-strength indices, through the interpolation in SSP model predictions.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 3.2.3 (installed in March 2023).
Usage: The command to type is: module load rmodel
Upgrade Notes: None available
Manuals and Documentation: Detailed explanations on the usage of this program can be found in the rmodel website.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

RStudio

Website: https://posit.co/download/rstudio-desktop/
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 2025.05.1.
Usage: At the command prompt, type: module load rstudio
Upgrade Notes: See the RStudio rekease notes page.
Manuals and Documentation: See the RStudio IDE User Guide.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

Sage

Website: https://www.sagemath.org/tour.html
Description: Free open-source mathematics software system licensed under the GPL. It combines the power of many existing open-source packages into a common Python-based interface. .
Version installed: Ubuntu 18.04: 9.5.4 (from the Ubuntu repositories).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: sage
Upgrade Notes: See the Changelog
Manuals and Documentation: See the extensive on-line Documentation, or go through the Sage Feature tour.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124
Additional Info: Sage's Mission is: "Creating a viable free open source alternative to Magma, Maple, Mathematica and Matlab".

SAS

Website: https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/xmm-newton/sas
Description: Collection of tasks, scripts and libraries, specifically designed to reduce and analyze data collected by the XMM-Newton observatory.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: SAS v21.0 (installed in June 2023).
Usage: At the command prompt, first launch the HEAsoft package with the command: headas or xheadas Then run: source /opt/SAS/xmmsas/setsas.sh
Upgrade Notes: Changes and improvements are described in the SAS Release Notes.
Manuals and Documentation: Visit the User Guide to the XMM-Newton Science Analysis System and the The XMM-Newton ABC Guide: An Introduction to XMM-Newton Data Analysis
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

SCAMP

Website: https://www.astromatic.net/pubsvn/software/scamp/trunk/doc/scamp.pdf
Description: SCAMP is the new TERAPIX calibration tool. SCAMP reads SExtractor catalogs and computes astrometric and photometric solutions for any arbitrary sequence of FITS images in a completely automatic way.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 2.14.1.
Usage: At the command prompt, type: module load scamp
Upgrade Notes: This version has been compiled with the Intel Math Kernel Library and is multithread.
Manuals and Documentation: Consult the SCAMP website, and read the SCAMP User's Manual.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

SExtractor

Website: SExtractor website
Description: SExtractor is a program that builds a catalogue of objects from an astronomical image. Although it is particularly oriented towards reduction of large scale galaxy-survey data, it performs rather well on moderately crowded star fields.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 2.29.0 (installed in September 2025).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: module load sextractor
Upgrade Notes: This version of sextractor has been compiled with the Intel Math Kernel Library and is multithread.
Manuals and Documentation: Read the User's Manual or the Source Extractor for Dummies.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124
Additional Info: Configuration files are in /usr/share/source-extractor/.

SkyMaker

Website: SkyMaker website
Description: SkyMaker is a program that simulates astronomical images. It accepts object lists in ASCII generated by the Stuff program to produce realistic astronomical fields.
Version installed: Ubuntu 18.04: 4.2.0 (installed in April 2023).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: sky
Upgrade Notes: N/A
Manuals and Documentation: There is no SkyMaker documentation yet, however see the "Lecture II: Image simulations" slides by T. Erben (AIfA, Bonn)
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124
Additional Info: See the sample configuration file in /opt/sextractor/skymaker-4.2.0/config/sample.list.

SkyMaker

Website: SkyMaker website
Description: PSFEx (PSF Extractor) extracts models of the Point Spread Function (PSF) from FITS images processed with SExtractor, and measures the quality of images. The generated PSF models can be used for model-fitting photometry or morphological analyses..
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 3.17.1 (from the Ubuntu repositories).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: psfex
Upgrade Notes: N/A
Manuals and Documentation: See the PSFEx User's Manual.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124
Additional Info: Configuration file in /usr/share/psfex/.

SoFiA

Website: https://gitlab.com/SoFiA-Admin/SoFiA-2/
Description: Version 2 of the HI Source Finding Application (SoFiA), a source finding pipeline originally designed to detect and characterise galaxies in 3D extragalctic HI data cubes. SoFiA 2 is a reimplementation of the original SoFiA pipeline in the C programming language and provides most of the functionality of SoFiA 1.x.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 2.6.0 (installed in March 2025).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: module load sofia2
Upgrade Notes: See the SoFiA 2.6 Release notes.
Manuals and Documentation: See the SoFiA 2 User Manual and the SoFiA Tutorial.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

SPLAT-VO

Website: SPLAT-VO website
Description: Graphical tool for displaying, comparing, modifying and analysing astronomical spectra stored in NDF, FITS and TEXT files as well as the new NDX format. Upgraded to include a toolbox for querying, downloading and displaying spectra from the current generation of SSAP servers.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 3.11-3 (installed in May 2023).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: splat
Upgrade Notes: See the NEWS file.
Manuals and Documentation: See the SPLAT Walkthrough description.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

SSW

Website: SSW website
Description: IDL-based set of programs and libraries for Solar Physics
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: updated as of April 2015
Usage: At the command prompt, type: ssw
Upgrade Notes: Upgrades will be done upon user's request.
Manuals and Documentation: Check the SolarSoft page
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124
Additional Info: To load your own set of packages/instruments, set the SSW_INSTR variable before starting ssw, for instance: setenv SSW_INSTR "eis sot xrt", or, from the IDL prompt, type: ssw_path, /xxx, /yyy [replace xxx, yyy by the actual package names] .

Starlink

Website: https://starlink.eao.hawaii.edu/cgi-bin/htxfinder
Description: Starlink is a set of software managed and distributed by the Starlink Project, and mainly used by the English astronomical community. Includes the "figaro" and "dipso" packages.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 2021A (installed in December 2022).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: starlink or xstarlink (the latter will open a new terminal windows).
Upgrade Notes: See the 2018A Release Notes.
Manuals and Documentation: See the new Starlink website and links therein, in particular the Search the Documentation tool.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124
Additional Info: The Starlink Project is now maintained by the East Asian Observatory. The code is open source.

Starpos

Description: A program written by J. Acosta and E. Pérez to plot altitude versus time for a list of objects and for a given night.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: Feb 2004 (Fortran code to compute Moon's position has been revised)
Usage: At the command prompt, type: starpos
Upgrade Notes:
Manuals and Documentation: Not available - its use is very simple and does not require any manual or help page.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124
Additional Info: If you read the object list from a file, its format is: Object1 HH.MMSS DD.PPSS Object2 HH.MMSS DD.PPSS ... A similar HTML-based utility is STARALT, developed at the ING.

STIFF

Website: https://www.astromatic.net/software/stiff
Description: Program that converts scientific FITS images to the more popular TIFF format for illustration purposes.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 2.4.0 (installed in March 2023).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: stiff
Upgrade Notes: N/A
Manuals and Documentation: See the STIFF website.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

STILTS

Website: https://www.star.bristol.ac.uk/mbt/stilts/sun256.pdf
Description: The STIL Tool Set is a set of command-line tools based on STIL, the Starlink Tables Infrastructure Library. It deals with the processing of tabular data; the package has been designed for, but is not restricted to, astronomical tables such as object catalogues. Some of the tools are generic and can work with multiple formats (including FITS, VOTable, CSV, SQL and ASCII), and others are specific to the VOTable format. In some ways, STILTS forms the command-line counterpart of the GUI table analysis tool TOPCAT. The package is robust, fully documented, and designed for efficiency, especially with very large datasets.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 3.5-2 (installed in March 2025).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: module load stilts
Upgrade Notes: See the full Version History.
Manuals and Documentation: See the STILTS website and links therein, in particular the User's Manual.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

Stuff

Website: Stuff website
Description: Stuff is a program that simulates "perfect" astronomical catalogues. It generate object lists in ASCII which can read by the SkyMaker program to produce realistic astronomical fields
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 1.26.0 (installed in April 2023).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: stuff
Upgrade Notes: N/A
Manuals and Documentation: There is no Stuff documentation yet, however see the "Lecture II: Image simulations" slides by T. Erben (AIfA, Bonn)
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124
Additional Info: Data files (extinction, filters, seds) are in /opt/sextractor/stuff-1.26.0/data/

Supermongo

Website: https://www.astro.princeton.edu/~rhl/sm/tutorial.html
Description: Supermongo, aka SM, is an interactive plotting programme with a flexible command language.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 2.4.36 (installed in February 2023).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: sm A startup configuration file is needed: /home/user/.sm. A template, that you can copy, is available in /opt/supermongo/sm/lib/sm/.sm. If you have a "termcap" line in your .sm file in Linux (possibly a leftover from some older version), delete it.
Upgrade Notes: See the Supermongo Release Notes file.
Manuals and Documentation: The full SM Reference Manual (in HTML) is stored at the Princeton site. The manual is for version 2.4.16. Also available is a SM tutorial.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124
Additional Info: SM's TeX Emulation: "If you want to make SM understand TeX strings you should define the variable TeX_strings (if you put a line "TeX_strings 1" in your .sm file this will be done automatically). You can, of course, undefine it at any time to revert to the old-fashioned strings described below. Using TeX-style strings is strongly recommended by the authors; all future and most recent improvements to SM's labels are only supported in TeX mode." Issues: Because of some problem with "to many capabilities in graphcap entry", SM might mess up with the prompt and command line editing/recalling. This is easy to fix: in SM, just type termtype vt100. If you get error messages on the termcap file upon starting SM, please add this line in your .sm file: termcap /opt/supermongo/sm/lib/sm/termcap

SWarp

Website: https://www.astromatic.net/pubsvn/software/swarp/trunk/doc/swarp.pdf
Description: SWarp is a program that resamples and co-adds together FITS images using any arbitrary astrometric projection defined in the WCS standard.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 2.41.5 (from the Ubuntu repositories).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: SWarp (note: S and W uppercase)
Upgrade Notes: N/A
Manuals and Documentation: See the SWarp website, and read the SWarp User's guide.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

Telarchive

Website: http://www.mpe.mpg.de/~erwin/code/
Description: Peter Erwin's Python command-line program for searching multiple public telescope archives. It takes the name of an astronomical object -- or a set of coordinates -- and checks the telescope archives to see if they have observations within a user-specified box centered on the object/coordinates.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 2.0.3 (installed in June 2019).
Usage: At the command prompt, type : telarchive (telarchive --help for quick usage help) Examples: telarchive "ngc 7027" 2.0 telarchive --coords="02 27 37.7 -01 09 17" 6.0 Also, a new tool is available to retrieve images from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (Data Release 5): fetchdss (fetchdss --help for quick usage help)
Upgrade Notes: This new version includes fixes to restore access to the Gemini Observatory Archive [*] and SMOKA (Subaru, etc.), and also to restore proper reporting of results from the ESO archive.
Manuals and Documentation: See Peter Erwin's Telarchive page, and the Telarchive and Fetchdss README files
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124
Additional Info: Many thanks to Peter for developing and letting us use this pretty useful tool.

Tele

Description: Simple Unix script that searches for a string in the IAC personnel database. Useful to find email and phone number of IAC staff.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 0.4 (installed in April 2019)
Usage: At the command prompt, type, for example: tele
Upgrade Notes:
Manuals and Documentation: No manuals required for such a simple task.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

Texmaker

Website: https://www.xm1math.net/texmaker/doc.html
Description: Free LaTeX editor, that integrates many tools needed to develop documents with LaTeX, in just one application.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 5.0.3 (from the Ubuntu repositories).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: texmaker
Upgrade Notes: See the Change Log
Manuals and Documentation: See the Texmaker User Manual (especially the part about configuring Texmaker), or use the Help button.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

THELI

Website: https://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/theli/
Description: Tool for the automated reduction of astronomical images.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 3.1.3 (installed in May 2023).
Usage: To launch the THELI GUI, type first: theli For usage instructions, see the THELI website.
Upgrade Notes: See the CHANGELOG
Manuals and Documentation: See the Help index and the THELI trouble-shooter and FAQ.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

TOPCAT

Website: https://www.star.bristol.ac.uk/mbt/topcat/sun253.pdf
Description: The Tool for OPerations on Catalogues And Tables is an interactive graphical viewer and editor for tabular data. It has been designed for use with astronomical tables such as object catalogues, but is not restricted to astronomical applications. It understands a number of different astronomically important formats (including FITS and VOTable) and more formats can be added.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 4.10-5 (installed in October 2025).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: module load topcat
Upgrade Notes: See the full Version History.
Manuals and Documentation: See the TOPCAT website and links therein, in particular the User's Manual.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124
Additional Info: Should TOPCAT fail with a message like "java.lang.OutOfMemoryError", please read section 9.2.2: Memory Size of the User's Manual.

ULTRACAM

Website: ULTRACAM website
Description: Software written by Tom Marsh to enable reduction and analysis of ULTRACAM multi-CCD data. The software comes as a suite of stand-alone programs which carry out various obvious operations.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 9.16 (installed in February 2023).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: ultracam It will open a new shell, from which you can run any of the ULTRACAM tasks. Type "exit" to close the shell when finished.
Upgrade Notes:
Manuals and Documentation: See Tom Marsh's ULTRACAM page. A manual is available locally; in your browser load file: /opt/trm/ultracam-9.16/html/ultracam/index.html.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

VAPOR

Website: VAPOR website
Description: VAPOR is the Visualization and Analysis Platform for Ocean, Atmosphere, and Solar Researchers. A free 3D visualization environment for geophysical scientists.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 3.9.1 (installed in April 2024).
Usage: At the command prompt, type first: module load vapor to load the appropriate environment, and then vapor
Upgrade Notes: See the full Current Release Notes.
Manuals and Documentation: See the Quick Start Guides, as well as the Documentation tutorials.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

VisIt

Website: https://visit-sphinx-github-user-manual.readthedocs.io/en/develop/using_visit/index.html
Description: VisIt is an Open Source, interactive, scalable, visualization, animation and analysis tool, with which users can interactively visualize and analyze data ranging in scale from small (10,000 core) leadership-class computing facility simulation campaigns.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 3.4.1 (installed in April 2024).
Usage: At the command prompt, type first: module load visit to load the appropriate environment, and then visit
Upgrade Notes: See the full Release Notes.
Manuals and Documentation: See the Using Visit Manual, the VisIt tutorials, and the many other documentation links in VisIt's home
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

Visual Studio Code

Website: Visual Studio Code website
Description: Visual Studio Code is a standalone source code editor that runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux. It comes with built-in support for JavaScript, TypeScript and Node.js and has a rich ecosystem of extensions for other languages and runtimes (such as C++, C#, Java, Python, PHP, Go, .NET).
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 1.104.1 (installed in September 2025).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: module load vscode and then: code
Upgrade Notes: See the updates for August 2025 (version 1.104).
Manuals and Documentation: See the comprehensive Visual Studio Code Documentation.
SIE contact: Carlos Westendorp – carlos.westendorp@iac.es; – tel: 5330 – office: 1.124

VOConvert

Website: http://voi.iucaa.in/voi/VOConvert_UserGuide_1_0.htm
Description: Earlier called conVOT, it is a tool for converting files from one format to another. It supports following file format conversions: 1) ASCII to VOTable; 2) FITS to VOTable; 3) VOTable to ASCII.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 1.0 (installed in January 2023).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: module load voconvert
Upgrade Notes: See the full Release Notes.
Manuals and Documentation: See the VOConvert website and links therein, in particular the Userguide.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

VODesktop

Website: http://casu.ast.cam.ac.uk/surveys-projects/iphas/vo-desktop
Description: Launching point for doing science using VO tools. It uses a resource centred approach. First you choose the resources you are interested in by searching the registry of resources. Next, you query the chosen resources to look for and fetch the specific data you want. Finally, you either save the data (to VOSpace or to local disk) or pass the data on to another application (eg an image viewer like Aladin), to start doing some science analysis.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 1.3.2 (installed in February 2023).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: module load vodesktop
Upgrade Notes: N/A
Manuals and Documentation: See the VODesktop Overview page and links therein.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

VOPlot

Website: http://voi.iucaa.in/voi/VOPlot_UserGuide_1_7/index-frames.html
Description: Tool for visualizing astronomical data. VOPlot is developed in JAVA, and acts on data available in the VOTable format.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 1.8 (installed in February 2023).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: module load voplot
Upgrade Notes: See the Change Log.
Manuals and Documentation: See the VOPlot User Guide.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

VOSpec

Website: http://esavo.esac.esa.int/VOSpecManual/
Description: Tool able to handle Spectra in the VO context as well as to provide analysis capabilities and easy integration of spectra coming from different data providers, wavelengths, and different metadata.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 6.7 (installed in April 2023).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: module load vospec
Upgrade Notes: See the VOSpec versioning page.
Manuals and Documentation: See the VOSpec User Manual.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

WCSLIB

Website: https://www.atnf.csiro.au/people/mcalabre/WCS/wcslib/software.html
Description: WCSLIB is a C library, supplied with a full set of Fortran wrappers, that implements the "World Coordinate System" (WCS) standard in FITS (Flexible Image Transport System). It also includes a PGPLOT-based routine, PGSBOX, for drawing general curvilinear coordinate graticules and a number of utility programs.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 7.12 (installed in February 2023).
Usage: See the WCSLIB website.
Upgrade Notes: Ask us if you wish to use this version instead of the one installed from the Ubuntu repositories (5.18).
Manuals and Documentation: See the WCSLIB website.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124
Additional Info: the WCSLIB v7.12 library is located in /opt/SIEvarios/wcslib-7.12/

WCSTools

Website: http://tdc-www.harvard.edu/software/wcstools/
Description: Package of programs and a library of utility subroutines for setting and using the world coordinate systems (WCS) in the headers of the most common astronomical image formats, FITS and IRAF .imh, to relate image pixels to sky coordinates.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 3.9.6.1 (from the Ubuntu repositories).
Upgrade Notes:
Manuals and Documentation: In the WCSTools shell type: wcstools to see what commands are available and how to get help on them. Or check out the WCSTools website.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124
Additional Info: Some catalogs can be accessed through Internet, others must be installed on a local disk. If in doubt get in touch with us.

X11IRAF

Website: http://iraf.net/
Description: It's a set of utilities for IRAF, which includes XGterm, XImtool, the CDL (Client Display Library), XTapemon.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 2.0 (installed in April 2023).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: ximtool to start the image display (now it does work in 24-bit color depth too) xgterm to start the terminal window for IRAF Please note that ximtool now works in 24-bit color depth.
Upgrade Notes: The changes from the previous version can be found in the X11IRAF v2.0 Release Notes.
Manuals and Documentation: Check the Unix man pages for xgterm and ximtool.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124
Additional Info: XGterm: use xgterm instead of xterm as the terminal where to start IRAF. As a matter of fact, IRAF only works correctly in a XGterm terminal. XImtool: the major change is the support of TrueColor visuals (so-called '24-bit displays'). However, XImtool should still considered as a beta-release (though stable enough for general usage), and may still present some rough edges or unexpected behaviors, depending on the specific platform.

XEmacs

Website: https://www.xemacs.org/
Description: XEmacs, aka Emacs: The Next Generation, is a "highly customizable open source text editor and application development system".
Version installed: Ubuntu 18.04: 21.4.24 (from the Ubuntu repositories).
Usage: As in Emacs, files .emacs and .Xdefaults in the home directory are used to set configuration and properties.
Upgrade Notes: XEmacs comes bundled with the Operating System installation set. The XEmacs Release Notice Archive provides links to all current and past XEmacs versions, each with a detailed release notice.
Manuals and Documentation: See the Unix man page, or open the Help menu in the XEmacs window, or click on the Info button. Plenty of documentation in the XEmacs website.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124
Additional Info: Alternative, perhaps simpler editors are Emacs and Nedit. XEmacs is not maintained by the SIE, who instead provide full support for Emacs.

XEphem

Website: https://github.com/XEphem/XEphem
Description: XEphem is a "star-charting, sky-simulating, ephemeris-generating" package
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 4.2.0 (installed in March 2024).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: module load xephem/4.2.0 and then xephem
Upgrade Notes: Read theChangelog for XEphem.
Manuals and Documentation: Click on the Help button after launching xephem. FAQs and a User Manual are can be found in the XEphem website.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124
Additional Info: Custom configurations are stored in the file ${HOME}/.xephem/XEphem. You can have a look at the file I keep in my own home, and use it as a template.

Xfig

Website: https://mcj.sourceforge.net/
Description: Interactive drawing tool which runs under X Windows Systems.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 3.2.8b (from the Ubuntu repositories)
Usage: At the command prompt, type: xfig (xfig -h for a list of options)
Upgrade Notes: Xfig comes bundled with the Ubuntu 22.04 Operating Systems. No changelogs seem to be available.
Manuals and Documentation: Use the help button in the application, or consult directly the Xfig User Manual.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

Yacas

Website: http://www.yacas.org/
Description: YACAS is an easy to use, general purpose Computer Algebra System, a program for symbolic manipulation of mathematical expressions. It uses its own programming language designed for symbolic as well as arbitrary-precision numerical computations. The system has a library of scripts that implement many of the symbolic algebra operations; new algorithms can be easily added to the library.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 1.3.6 (from the Ubuntu repositories).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: yacas
Upgrade Notes: No Changelog seems to be available.
Manuals and Documentation: See the Yacas website and click on the Manual or on the Tutorial tabs.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

Yorick

Website: https://yorick.sourceforge.net/help.php
Description: Yorick is an interpreted programming language for scientific simulations or calculations, postprocessing or steering large simulation codes, interactive scientific graphics, and reading, writing, or translating large files of numbers. Yorick includes an interactive graphics package, and a binary file package capable of translating to and from the raw numeric formats of all modern computers.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 2.2.04 (from the Ubuntu repositories).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: yorick
Upgrade Notes: No Changelog seems to be available.
Manuals and Documentation: See the Yorick Help page and links therein
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

ZEBRA

Website: https://www.phys.ethz.ch/carollo/research/zebra.html
Description: ZEBRA combines and extends several of the classical approaches to produce accurate photometric redshifts down to faint magnitudes.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 1.10 (installed in August 2014).
Usage: At the command prompt, type : module load zebra zebra --help # for quick usage help Please see the ZEBRA manual for full details about its usage. Docs, examples and scripts can be found inside the directory: /opt/SIE/zebra/zebra-1.10/
Upgrade Notes: N/A
Manuals and Documentation: Please consult the ZEBRA website and the ZEBRA User manual (PDF).
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

Zotero

Website: https://www.zotero.org/
Description: Free, easy-to-use tool to help you collect, organize, annotate, cite, and share research.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 7.0.24 (installed in September 2025).
Usage: At the command prompt, type: module load zotero and then: zotero
Upgrade Notes: See the Zotero Version History page.
Manuals and Documentation: Follow the links in the Documentation page.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124

Zphot-Hyperz

Website: http://userpages.irap.omp.eu/~rpello/hyperz-public/
Description: New and public photometric redshift code by Micol Bolzonella, Roser Pelló, Joan-Marc Miralles.
Version installed: Ubuntu 22.04: 1.1 (installed in April 2023)
Usage: Two commands are available: hyperz and make_catalog You may need to copy the configurations files, such as catalog.param, spectra.param, zphot.param over to your own work directory, and edit them to change the paths ro reflect the new location. The above files, as well as several others you may wish to inspect and/or modify, are in directory and subdirectories of: /opt/zphot/zphot-1.1/
Upgrade Notes: N/A
Manuals and Documentation: Please consult the Zphot-Hyperz User's manual.
SIE contact: Nicola Caon – nicola.caon@iac.es; – tel: 5383 – office: 1.124