A few IPython notebooks

I have started to collect together a few IPython notebooks highlighting a few features of Sherpa - in particular the standalone version. They can be found on GitHub at https://github.com/DougBurke/sherpa-standalone-notebooks/ and the current collection contains:

•  A simple fit
•  Writing your own user model
•  An integrated user model
•  How can I plot data and models using the lower-level interface

The first one is the same as referenced in my
How do I use the standalone build of Sherpa to fit my data?
post from last year, but the last three are *new*.

We will soon have a better location for this style of information, as we continue work on our "Open Sherpa" project. Please come along and help out!

Ivan Zolotukhin posted on Facebook the link to his web application that wraps Sherpa to fit the spectra in the new XMM catalog 3XMM-DR5:
http://xmm-catalog.irap.omp.eu/source/201068601010004

Installing Sherpa

My new iMac with Yosemite arrived this week and I have to install all the software packages I  use including Sherpa.  I had to install Python Anaconda then setup my local git directory
and clone sherpa:

$ git clone https://github.com/sherpa/sherpa.git

Next go and install sherpa:

$ cd sherpa
$ sherpa setup.py install

The build failed as I did not have gfortran. 
Installing gfortran was easy - just got the package from https://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/GFortranBinaries
and follow the instructions.

With this update the basic Sherpa installation completed. I run the sherpa_test which failed as I did not have pyfits.

Used 

$ pip install pyfits

Then I run sherpa_test  and this time the tests passed. I still need to install ds9, but now I have Sherpa and can run some of the analysis that I have to do today.

Sherpa Becomes an Open Project!

On April 20, 2015 Sherpa became an Open Source project!  The source code repository is now on GitHub.   The project repository can be 'cloned'  allowing for development of  the new code, new extensions  or bug fixes.  The Sherpa Project welcomes contributions via GitHub.  

Now, you can build Sherpa from source on your own platform within your Python environment with additional customization. See more details on Sherpa documentation page.