Alternative astronomical software packages

At a time when the United Nations, in collaboration with Wolfram Research, has selected the Mathematica software package to inform developing countrie s about available scientific tools, it is important to review other choices of software being used by active scientists around the world. For observat ional astronomers with large volumes of digital data to be analyzed, the ma in challenges are data reductions, image handling, model comparisons, inter active fits, data simulations and visualizations, etc. There are several go od alternative software packages such as: AIPS*,IRAF dagger, MIDAS double d agger and IDL . The first three packages can be obtained free of charge by contacting the sponsoring institutions. Information can be obtained, via th e World Wide Web, from the URLs indicated in the footnotes. IDL is a commer cial package that can be used in all kinds of computer platforms and is ext ensively used in space astronomy (e.g., main language of software reduction packages of missions like IUE, HST ROSAT, SOHO, etc). All of these package s are able to handle some of the most common commercial and scientific data formats (FITS, CDF and HDF). These software packages provide general tools for image processing and data reduction with emphasis on, but not limited to, astronomical applications. All of these packages have good active custo mer support strategies, the most useful ones being periodic newsletters, re lated meetings (e.g., annual meeting on Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems), software user groups, bulletin board discussions, FAQs, etc. The purpose of this paper is to present the relative usefulness, available platforms, associated libraries, related resources, of these software pack ages and the many already existing and potential astronomical applications.