Astronomical Image Processing System: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 04:30, 9 October 2014

Revision as of 13:42, 31 October 2014

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The '''Astronomical Image Processing System''' (AIPS) is a package to support the reduction and analysis of data taken with radio telescopes. It is most useful for arrays of telescopes like the [[Very Large Array|VLA]] and [[Very Long Baseline Array|VLBA]] and the [[Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope|WSRT]]. In more recent years, it has also been used successfully for [[VLBI]] (very long baseline interferometry).

The software was originally developed by [[NRAO]] in the seventies, and has since grown to be the defactode facto standard software package in the worldwide radioastronomy community.

==History==

{{referencesunreferenced|date=October 2014}}

AIPS is what most of us{{who|date=October 2014}} would now describe as “legacy software”, having been originally coded in a truly ancient dialect of [[FORTRAN]] (predating even the venerable FORTRAN IV). AIPS now uses FORTRAN 77, although it has been digested successfully by at least one FORTRAN 90 compiler.