Common Astronomy Software Applications (CASA) is a software system for
the reduction, display and analysis of radio-astronomical data.
The present CASA effort builds upon the libraries developed by the
AIPS++ consortium and we are now providing a completely revised user
interface using a Python/iPython interface (http://www.python.org/;
http://ipython.scipy.org/moin/About). The software development will
also focus on new functionality needed for the ALMA and EVLA
telescopes.
The CASA Beta Release
We are currently in a staged Beta Release of the CASA
package. This software has been under development in
support of the ALMA and EVLA project, but is intended to also be of
general use for radio astronomy data post-processing. This staged
release will allow personnel involved in the construction, operations,
and advisory committees for ALMA and EVLA to adopt early
use of the package for commissioning, development of user support
capabilities, and to provide feedback to the CASA team. Initially, through early 2008, access to the Beta and support for
CASA users will be restricted to ALMA and EVLA project personnel and
key committee members in order that the CASA development will not be
burdened with user support and can continue to make progress to
complete the suite of basic functionality and to pursue advanced
algorithm development needed for ALMA and EVLA. During this period,
CASA User Support Specialists will be trained in the use of
the CASA Beta Release, and in turn these specialists will train others
as needed. In 2008, we plan to gradually expand the availability of the Beta
Release to others in the community as our user support capabilities
ramp up.
See the Beta Release Page for
more details We apologize for any incovenience that this limited release policy
may cause. However, the gradual staging of the release is necessary
due to limited manpower within the project,
in order to properly ramp up our User Support system and to not burden
the developers. Please stay tuned as we open up to broader community
use in 2008 and 2009!
The Beta Release is aimed at supporting basic interferometric data
reduction. It will support the import of data in a limited number
of formats, and a reasonably full set of processing capabilities for
only a limited number of observing modes. See the
beta release notes for more information on supported
observing modes and data formats.
The CASA web page can be viewed for
updated plans and other information about the system.