Starting IRAF in the Anaconda Astroconda environment

Summary

This article will provide instructions on how to start IRAF in the Anaconda Astroconda iraf27 environment. These directions apply to starting IRAF in the iraf27 environment installed under anaconda on a typical LSA TS - Randall build for Astronomy.

Environment

Directions

1. Your prompt may appear different from the example here, depending on what your default shell is set to, whether it be bash, tcsh, or zsh, as well as if you have anaconda initialized for your shell.  Assuming you have previously run /usr/local/anaconda/bin/conda init tcsh  (or bash or zsh, depending on what your default shell is, and restarted your terminal session to apply the changes), you can then go on to activate the iraf27 environment.
2. Activate the iraf27 environment with the following: $​​​​​ conda activate iraf27
   Once the environment is active, your prompt with change to show an (iraf27) at the beginning of it.
3. Now you will run the mkiraf command, which will create your login.cl file, your uparm directory, and will define system logicals and symbols: (iraf27)$​​​​​ mkiraf
   (If you haven’t already set up your login.cl file, make sure you set the terminal type to xgterm when prompted, though you can always edit the file later and change it.)
4. Start xgterm and put it in the background. This will spawn an xgterm window, and you’ll end up at the tcsh prompt in your home directory — /u/home/uniqname or /home/uniqname in Linux and /Users/uniqname in Mac OSX — in that window: (iraf27)$​​​​​ xgterm &
5. Now in the xgterm window, you will need to start ds9 and put it in the background: $​​​​​ ds9 &
6. Start up IRAF with the cl command: $​​​​​ cl
7. This will put you at the IRAF prompt: ecl>