Python Versus IDL For Astronomers and Our Beautiful Sun.

Given our recent trashing of IDL I thought I would be fair and admit:

1. The majority of the plotting issues we discussed have actually been addressed in the new IDL 8.0.
2. AstroBetter, a site with the purpose of providing "tips and tricks for professional astronomers", has a good honest assessment of the pros and cons of IDL versus Python. (A list that is continuously updated.)

That said, I will point out a few things (being the biased person I am):

1. There are real reasons why the Hubble, James Webb space telescope and ALMA teams as well as STScI are migrating a lot of their code base to Python .
2. For that matter, this is why CERN is providing python wrappers for their major pieces of software like ROOT. 
3. I agree with these decisions. :)

Just some observations.  That said, enjoy a beautiful picture of the sun taken by Alan Friedman: