IRSKY, an interactive software tool for viewing the infrared sky, is now available for use on IPAC computers from any host on the Internet equipped with X Windows. IRSKY offers convenient and efficient access to the major released science products from the IRAS (Infrared Astronomical Satellite) mission which provided a sensitive all-sky survey at 12, 25, 60 and 100 um. It is designed as an environment for astronomers to plan observations in the context of the known infrared sky, with special emphasis on observations using ESA's Infrared Space Observatory (ISO). IRSKY users need only specify a position on the sky, and the interface will display:
- Images from the IRAS Sky Survey Atlas which covers 96% of the sky with 4' resolution and 1.5' pixels. A model of the zodiacal emission has been subtracted from the images. The user can read the brightness in any pixel, and obtain estimates of the brightness at wavelengths other than the IRAS bands.
- Markers overlaid on the images showing the location of entries in the IRAS Point Source and Faint Source Catalogs, as well as the Hubble Space Telescope Guide Star Catalog. The user can retrieve detailed data on any source displayed.
- Estimates of the total sky brightness at any wavelength between 5 and 200 um, based on the low-resolution (30') IRAS all-sky maps extrapolated or interpolated to other wavelengths.
- Estimates of confusion noise due to source crowding and emission structure for a given aperture and wavelength.
IRSKY provides a summary guide to the ISO instrument parameters, and a graphic representation of the ISO focal plane (with apertures, chopping directions and Sun vector) and of ISO mapping rasters. Using the display and analytic calculation abilities of IRSKY, the user may try out different observing strategies, estimating the flux seen by the detector, experimenting with aperture sizes, raster-map patterns, and chopper orientations and throws. At the end of the session, IRSKY will email to the user upon request a session log as well as a record of all data retrieved during the session.
Additional new data sets and functions will be added to IRSKY in the coming few months, based mostly on user demand.
IRSKY can be accessed from any computer that is an Internet host, and that runs X Windows including Motif, Sun OpenWindows, DEC Windows, or other X11-compatible window system, but not SunView. A connection to IPAC may be established with the command telnet irsky.ipac.caltech.edu 1040;
no password is needed. From this point on the interface is self-documenting, especially through the HELP options.If you have any questions or problems, please send email to irsky@ipac.caltech.edu or contact Steve Lord or Rick Ebert at 818-397-9507.