Preparing for spectroscopic data reduction in a PyRAF / IRAF-less future

The APO Data Analysis Working Group surveyed the 3.5m Users in 2019 and found that most users still rely on IRAF/PyRAF for the reduction of their data from the 3.5m and 0.5m telescopes. The discontinued support of IRAF in the future, and the general trend toward a "Python-only" computing infrastructure in astronomy, puts the sustainability of the community's tried and trusted reduction pipelines with IRAF into jeopardy.

Introducing SpecLab!  This is a Python-only data reduction facility that I have been developing over the past several years incrementally in spare time (on weekends and in the evenings).  I started it because of the need to provide students a backup option for the imexam + DS9 convenience that is possible with IRAF.

Speclab has interactive GUI functionalities that are not available in any of the Python software packages yet developed by STScI and Astropy.  SpecLab thus has pedagogical functionality with the intention of being used in undergrad and graduate classes to teach data reduction.  It can also be used to provide publication-ready reductions via automated scripts.

In this poster, I present a demonstration of SpecLab’s imexam for quick look assessment of your raw data from any of the instruments on the 3.5m at APO.  I also show a preview of identify and standard.