Papers to read

Best Practices for Scientific Computing. What can I say? Good reading! Please don’t let not following its recommendations stop you from making your code(s) public or from submitting it/them to the ASCL, however. Offer them up with the CRAPL license; make your codes available no matter how messy they are. After all, Astronomical Software Wants To Be Free. And really, science requires it.

September 2012 additions

Fifteen codes were added to the ASCL in September, bringing the number to 515.

ANNz: Artificial Neural Networks for estimating photometric redshifts
Aspects: Probabilistic/positional association of catalogs of sources
Bayesian Blocks: Detecting and characterizing local variability in time series
CHORIZOS: CHi-square cOde for parameterRized modeling and characterIZation of phOtometry and Spectrophotmetry
DiskFit: Modeling Asymmetries in Disk Galaxies

FAMIAS: Frequency Analysis and Mode Identification for AsteroSeismology
HARM: A Numerical Scheme for General Relativistic Magnetohydrodynamics
IRACproc: IRAC Post-BCD Processing
JAGS: Just Another Gibbs Sampler
LSD: Large Survey Database framework

macula: Rotational modulations in the photometry of spotted stars
MeqTrees: Software package for implementing Measurement Equations
Phantom-GRAPE: SIMD accelerated numerical library for N-body simulations
Scanamorphos: Maps from scan observations made with bolometer arrays
TMCalc: Fast estimation of stellar metallicity [Fe/H]

Codes added in August 2012

Twenty-five codes were added to the ASCL in August; we ended the month with 500 codes.

APLpy: Astronomical Plotting Library in Python
APT: Aperture Photometry Tool
Astrometry.net: Astrometric calibration of images
BASE: Bayesian Astrometric and Spectroscopic Exoplanet Detection and Characterization Tool
Big MACS: Accurate photometric calibration

BINSYN: Simulating Spectra and Light Curves of Binary Systems with or without Accretion Disks
BLOBCAT: Software to Catalog Blobs
BLOCK: A Bayesian block method to analyze structure in photon counting data
BSGMODEL: The Bahcall-Soneira Galaxy Model
ccogs: Cosmological Calculations on the GPU

CUBEP3M: High performance P3M N-body code
EXTINCT: A computerized model of large-scale visual interstellar extinction
EzGal: A Flexible Interface for Stellar Population Synthesis Models
Fewbody: Numerical toolkit for simulating small-N gravitational dynamics
Lare3d: Lagrangian-Eulerian remap scheme for MHD

MPFIT: Robust non-linear least squares curve fitting
MPI-AMRVAC: MPI-Adaptive Mesh Refinement-Versatile Advection Code
ParselTongue: AIPS Python Interface
PSM: Planck Sky Model
PyKE: Reduction and analysis of Kepler Simple Aperture Photometry data

RADPACK: A RADical compression analysis PACKage for fitting to the CMB
SolarSoft: Programming and data analysis environment for solar physics
Swarm-NG: Parallel n-body Integrations
TiRiFiC: Tilted Ring Fitting Code
VARTOOLS: Light Curve Analysis Program

Now at 500 codes!

Sometimes the codes are easy to find, sometimes they are not. August was a good month. The last of the old codes have been moved over from the old site, associate editor Kim and I had a surprisingly easy time finding codes, and we even had a couple or three codes submitted by their authors. This boosted the ASCL to 500 codes.

Got codes? We want ’em; please share! Submit right on the ASCL itself. Know of a code we don’t have? Please suggest it for inclusion. Just post a reply with any information you have on it. Thanks!

Codes added in July 2012

Fourteen codes were added to the ASCL in July; there are now 475 codes in the library.

Astropysics: Astrophysics utilities for python
dcr: Cosmic Ray Removal
EXOFAST: Fast transit and/or RV fitter for single exoplanet
HiGPUs: Hermite’s N-body integrator running on Graphic Processing Units
Hyperion: Parallelized 3D Dust Continuum Radiative Transfer Code

JKTEBOP: Analyzing light curves of detached eclipsing binaries
L.A.Cosmic: Laplacian Cosmic Ray Identification
PCA: Principal Component Analysis for spectra modeling
PyFITS: Python FITS Module
PyRAF: Python alternative for IRAF

PySALT: SALT science pipeline
VAC: Versatile Advection Code
wvrgcal: Correction of atmospheric phase fluctuations in ALMA observations
xSonify: Sonification software

Web Tools and Resources

The ASCL has a thread of web tools and resources for astronomers that we’ve come across while code-gathering. Sometimes these are web versions of downloadable codes in the ASCL; if a code is available only in a non-downloadable version, essentially acting as a black box, it is listed here, too, rather than given a regular entry.

In June and July, we’ve added four new web tools to the thread:

PaperScope, a tool for graphically exploring the Astrophysics Data System (ADS). It’s useful for identifying the citation/reference relationships between papers, and enables the user to visualize these relationships to make locating papers of interest easier.

SpectroWeb, an online maintained interactive graphical database of digital spectral atlases of spectral standard stars.

StarView, an astronomical database browser and research analysis tool.

Time Utilities, which are online applets that convert a list of UTCs to Barycentric Julian Dates in Barycentric Dynamical Time (BJD_TDB), Barycentric Julian Dates in Barycentric Dynamical Time (BJD_TDB) to Julian Dates in UTC, and Heliocentric Julian Dates to Barycentric Julian Dates.

Have a good resource that should be listed? Please add it to the thread; thanks!

Codes added in 2012 June

On June 30, there were 461 codes in the library listed on 5 pages.

bhint: High-precision integrator for stellar systems
Catena: Ensemble of stars orbit integration
Double Eclipsing Binary Fitting
FITS Liberator: Image processing software
ImageHealth: Quality Assurance for Large FITS Images

ImageJ: Image processing and analysis in Java
Libimf
mkj_libs: Helper routines for plane-fitting & analysis tools
MOLSCAT: MOLecular SCATtering
Plumix: Generating mass segregated star clusters

RegiStax: Alignment, stacking and processing of images
statpl: Goodness-of-fit for power-law distributed data
STSDAS: IRAF Tools for Hubble Space Telescope data reduction
Time Utilities

Codes added in 2012 May

On May 31, there were 447 codes in the library listed on 5 pages.

ARES: Automatic Routine for line Equivalent widths in stellar Spectra
Flexion: IDL code for calculating gravitational flexion
Fv: Interactive FITS file editor
Iris: The VAO SED Application
Mayavi2: 3D Scientific Data Visualization and Plotting

Mechanic: Numerical MPI framework for dynamical astronomy
Meudon PDR: Atomic & molecular structure of interstellar clouds
MIA+EWS: MIDI data reduction tool
p3d: General data-reduction tool for fiber-fed integral-field spectrographs
Turbospectrum: Code for spectral synthesis

VOSpec: VO Spectral Analysis Tool