Preliminary Announcement for the 

		        First Annual Conference on
	      Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems

                           November 6-8, 1991
                            Tucson, Arizona


	                      Sponsored by

                     IRAF Software Development Group
                 National Optical Astronomy Observatories

                    STSDAS Software Development Group
                    Space Telescope Science Institute

                     PROS Software Development Group
                  Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory


This conference will provide a forum for scientists and programmers concerned
with algorithms, software and software systems employed in the reduction and
analysis of astronomical data.  An important element of the program is to
foster communication between developers and users with a range of expertise
in the production and use of software and systems.  The program will consist,
in approximately equal parts, of invited talks, contributed papers, and users
group meetings.  A number of poster sessions and special interest group
meetings will be held during the conference.

Contributions to the program are invited in the areas of algorithms, software,
systems, and related topics, with emphasis on practical solutions to the
problems of treating real data.  This conference will highlight the following 
special topics:

    o Deconvolution and Image Restoration  o All Sky Data
    o High Energy Imaging                  o Error Analysis and Statistics

In addition, papers on the following general topics are planned:

    o Image and spectral analysis          o Software systems

Talks in the image and spectral analysis session will present algorithms and
techniques for analyzing data in a range of wavelength domains.  Talks in the
software systems session will present specific programs, projects or systems
and the software developed for those systems, discussing such things as the
technology employed, the design philosophy of each program or system, and any
problems encountered or lessons learned.

The conference will extend over three days.  Two days will be devoted to
contributed and invited speakers and poster sessions.  The third day will be
reserved for user group sessions, and for special interest discussions,
selected on the basis of participant interest.

An IRAF panel discussion and user group meeting is planned in which all the
major groups developing software for IRAF will participate, fielding questions
from the audience.  In addition, users group meetings for the following 
specific data analysis packages are currently planned:

     o The NOAO packages   o STSDAS (HST data)   o PROS (X-ray data)

The proceedings of the conference will be published as part of the
Astronomical Society of the Pacific Conference Series.

For preregistration please see the file iraf/conf/conf.preg.