Announcement of the 09SEPpl1.0 ESO-MIDAS Release

ESO-MIDAS Home Page The official 09SEPpl1.0 release of ESO-MIDAS has been released on Oct. 14, 2009 and is available on the ESO ftp server.

Below you find the following information concerning this new release:

What's new or upgraded in MIDAS 09SEPpl1.0?

All important enhancements and new developments can be found in the file /midas/09SEPpl1.0/prim/help/news.alq and displayed in Midas via the command 

Midas> help [News]

or click on the [News] topic in the Help graphical user interface.

Here we list the most important ones:

  • GET/FEXTENS

    New command to get the extension no. of FITS files for a given EXTNAME string.
    The direct support of extname strings in the file name syntax of Midas has been removed from release 09SEP on.

  • @a rgb

    New application procedure rgb.prg, based on code from MPIA Heidelberg (H.J. Roeser, 1996), has been implemented. This procedure takes 3 Midas images as red, green, blue component to create a JPEG image. See the help (Midas> HELP/APPLIC rgb) for details.

  • AVERAGE/WEIGHTS

    This command processed data exactly like the AVERAGE/IMAGES command, except that the input images were multiplied with a weight before entering into the calculations. This has been changed, now, to conform to the definition of weighted mean as e.g. in Wikipedia. The other options min, max, median for the statistics were removed. See the help for details.

  • SET/CONTEXT baches

    New context baches has been added to reduce data from the spectrometer of the ESO amateuer astronomer group (AGAPE).

Platform availability

MIDAS 09SEPpl1.0 has been installed and verified on the following platforms:

  • Intel/Linux OpenSUSE 11.1
  • Intel/Linux OpenSUSE 11.2-alpha2
  • Intel/Linux Kubuntu 8.10
  • Intel/Linux Kubuntu 9.04
  • Intel/Linux Fedora 11
  • Intel/Linux Mandriva 2009
  • Intel/Linux Debian 4.0 Etch
  • Intel/Linux ScientificLinux 5.3
  • Intel/Linux Linux Mint 7
  • Intel/Linux gOS 3.1
  • Intel/Linux AltLinux 5.1
  • Intel/Linux Toorox 06.2009
  • Intel/Linux openmamba 1.1

  • AMD 64/Linux OpenSUSE 11.1
  • AMD 64/Linux CentOS
  • AMD 64/Linux Sabayon 3.5

  • PowerPC/Mac OSX 10.4
  • Intel/Mac OSX 10.5

  • EeePC/Linux Mandriva 2008 Spring

  • Intel/Win 2000, Win XP (via cygwin)


Our Solaris workstations have been removed since 2008 and 09FEBpl1.0 was the last release which has been tested with Solaris on Sparc stations.

In our ftp area, the source version valid for all platforms mentioned above is available.

Source distribution

09SEPpl1.0 is available only as source code.

For a proper installation of MIDAS sources follow the procedure of the installation document provided in PostScript (installunix.ps.Z) and html format ( installunix.html )

ESO-MIDAS is a copyright protected software product of ESO, and provides general tools for image processing and data reduction.

ESO-MIDAS is available under the GNU General Public License. This means that the ESO-MIDAS system is available free of charge and can be freely redistributed on certain conditions.

ESO-MIDAS on a CD-ROM

Distribution of Midas via CD is not adequate anymore, and the service of a Midas-CD has been discontinued since the 08SEP release of Midas.

Technical Support and Network Services

Technical support for ESO-MIDAS can be obtained using the ESO-MIDAS Helpdesk by filling out the ESO-MIDAS Problem Report Form.
Enter as user guest (no password) and create a new Midas PR (do not forget to log out in the end).

Please note, that ESO is not in the position to give active support to individual users outside research institutions. Therefore, users who have problems or questions concerning ESO-MIDAS running on their private systems are advised to use the "midas-users" mailing list for obtaining feedback and solutions to their questions from other users.

In case the ESO-MIDAS Problem Report System cannot be used the MIDAS User Support can be contacted via:

  • Electronic mail: midas@eso.org
  • Telefax: +49 89 32006480 (attn.: MIDAS Support)
  • Post:
    Software Development Division - Data Flow System Dept.
    Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2,
    D-85748 Garching bei Muenchen,
    Germany

Other public services:

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