IRSA Viewer: FAQs

What is Firefly?

IRSA Viewer, and all the other tools that have the same look and feel, use at their core software called Firefly. Firefly development by IPAC at Caltech has been supported by NASA, principally through IRSA , and by the National Science Foundation, through the Vera C. Rubin Observatory . Firefly is open-source software, available on GitHub and DockerHub .

Do you have any tutorial videos?

Yes. There are IRSA Viewer Tool video tutorials, including quick start and longer AAS-demo style overviews, available at the IRSA YouTube channel . Also see the IRSA Viewer playlist (which collects all the IRSA Viewer tutorials together), as well as the playlist of tutorials relevant for more than one archive.

How do I get more help?

The "Help" blue tab leads you into this online help, as does "IRSA Viewer Help" from under the "Help" in the IRSA menu on the top of the IRSA Viewer page. You can also download a PDF version of this manual; look at the top of the help window.

You can submit questions to the IRSA Help Desk .

Found a bug? The known bugs and issues in this version of IRSA Viewer are listed here . If you think you have found a bug, before reporting it, please check this list, and read this online IRSA Viewer help. It may be a "feature" we already know about. If you have found a new, real bug then please do contact us via the IRSA Help Desk . Please include your operating system version and your browser software and version. If you can, please also include any specific error message you may have gotten. (NB: In our testing, copying shortcuts worked on Windows and Linux; the command-C did not work on Macs, but selecting and clicking the right mouse button did.)