[fitsbits] Web Hera Data Analysis Service

[William Pence]

This is to announce the beta release of a new FITS file data analysis 
service at the HEASARC called "Web Hera" which is available at

http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/webHera/

This new Web interface allows users to execute hundreds of data 
reduction and analysis programs in the large FTOOLS software package 
without having to download or install any software.  Instead, a 
Web-based form is used to select which of the FTOOLS programs to run and 
to enter all the necessary input parameters to the program.  Then, after 
clicking the "Run" button, the input files (currently limited to 100 MB 
in size) are copied from the user's local machine to one of several Hera 
server machines at the HEASARC where the program is executed.  The 
output results are then displayed on user's Web browser along with 
hyperlinks to any output files which can be used to download the files 
back to the user's local machine.

The FTOOLS programs are organized into 23 different 'packages'.  Many of 
the packages contain specialized analysis programs for specific 
high-energy astrophysics missions such as ROSAT, RXTE, Swift, and 
Suzaku.  However, the Futils, HEATOOLS, and Images packages in 
particular contain more general utility programs that may be of interest 
to a wider range of users.  For example, there are programs to display 
the contents of any FITS file, to perform arithmetic operations on FITS 
images, and to perform a wide variety of operations on FITS tables.

Web Hera is just one of several different interfaces to the Hera data 
analysis service at the HEASARC.  The other interfaces allow users to 
log into personalized Hera accounts which can be used to create and 
store data files on the Hera server machines, or to execute any of the 
FTOOLS programs using a command-line interface.  See the on-line Hera 
documentation for more details.

We would appreciate any feedback in improving this new Hera service.

- Bill Pence,
on behalf of the FTOOLS and Hera software developers.
-- 
____________________________________________________________________
Dr. William Pence                       William.Pence at nasa.gov
NASA/GSFC Code 662       HEASARC        +1-301-286-4599 (voice)
Greenbelt MD 20771                      +1-301-286-1684 (fax)