PyNeb (previously PyNebular) is an update and expansion of the IRAF package NEBULAR; rewritten in Python, it is designed to be more user-friendly and powerful, increasing the speed, easiness of use, and graphic visualization of emission lines analysis. In PyNeb, the atom is represented as an n-level atom. For given density and temperature, PyNeb solves the equilibrium equations and determines the level populations. PyNeb can compute physical conditions from suitable diagnostic line ratios and level populations, critical densities and line emissivities, and can compute and display emissivity grids as a function of Te and Ne. It can also deredden line intensities, read and manage observational data, and plot and compare atomic data from different publications, and compute ionic abundances from line intensities and physical conditions and elemental abundances from ionic abundances and icfs.

FTOOLS, a highly modular collection of utilities for processing and analyzing data in the FITS (Flexible Image Transport System) format, has been developed in support of the HEASARC (High Energy Astrophysics Research Archive Center) at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. The FTOOLS package contains many utility programs which perform modular tasks on any FITS image or table, as well as higher-level analysis programs designed specifically for data from current and past high energy astrophysics missions. The utility programs for FITS tables are especially rich and powerful, and provide functions for presentation of file contents, extraction of specific rows or columns, appending or merging tables, binning values in a column or selecting subsets of rows based on a boolean expression. Individual FTOOLS programs can easily be chained together in scripts to achieve more complex operations such as the generation and displaying of spectra or light curves. FTOOLS development began in 1991 and has produced the main set of data analysis software for the current ASCA and RXTE space missions and for other archival sets of X-ray and gamma-ray data. The FTOOLS software package is supported on most UNIX platforms and on Windows machines. The user interface is controlled by standard parameter files that are very similar to those used by IRAF. The package is self documenting through a stand alone help task called fhelp. Software is written in ANSI C and FORTRAN to provide portability across most computer systems. The data format dependencies between hardware platforms are isolated through the FITSIO library package.

ASpec is a spectrum and line analysis package developed at STScI. ASpec is designed as an add-on package for IRAF and incorporates a variety of analysis techniques for astronomical spectra. ASpec operates on spectra from a wide variety of ground-based and space-based instruments and allows simultaneous handling of spectra from different wavelength regimes. The package accommodates non-linear dispersion relations and provides a variety of functions, individually or in combination, with which to fit spectral features and the continuum. It also permits the masking of known bad data. ASpec provides a powerful, intuitive graphical user interface implemented using the IRAF Object Manager and customized to handle: data input/output (I/O); on-line help; selection of relevant features for analysis; plotting and graphical interaction; and data base management.