FITS Traffic Archive

FITS Newsgroups and Exploders

• sciastrofits
  Traffic on newsgroup sci.astro.fits and its predecessor alt.sci.astro.fits (these newsgroups are gated to the "fitsbits" exploder). Since 1991 this has been the place for general FITS discussions. The traffic is grouped by months, and completed years are in subdirectories. In addition to the traffic, the directory contains a copy of the charter of sci.astro.fits and of the RESULT posting that created the newsgroup in March 1992.
• dishfits
  The exploder "dishfits@nrao.edu" was created in August 1989 to facilitate discussions related to a workshop on a FITS interchange format for single-dish radio astronomy. The workshop was held at NRAO's Green Bank, WV, site in November 1989. The archive contains drafts of the "Green Bank Convention" and a variety of discussions of issues like hierarchical keywords and relational database schemas. The last message in these early discussions is dated June 1990. This exploder was reactivated in January 1995, and is now gatewayed to newsgroup adass.fits.dishfits.
• heafits
  An exploder created in April 1993 for discussions of FITS conventions for encoding high-energy astrophysics data. This archive is unofficial and is provided as a convenience and so that the WAIS indexer can support searches on heafits traffic. The heafits exploder maintains the official archive; for information about its command set send an Email message to listserv@legacy.gsfc.nasa.gov containing one line with the word "help".
• iaufwg
  An exploder created in 1993 for business traffic of the IAU FITS Working Group (the body which controls the FITS standards). File iaufwg.dis is the current distribution list of the exploder (i.e., the membership list of the IAU FWG).
• wfc
  Committee business traffic on the WGAS FITS Committee exploder "wfc@nrao.edu". Bob Hanisch, Chair of the AAS Working Group for Astronomical Software, has ruled that the traffic of the WFC exploder should be in the public domain. The WFC was formed in November 1992, and is the regional FITS committee for North America. File wfc.dis is the current distribution list of the exploder (i.e., the membership list of the WFC).

Other Newsgroups and Exploders

• scidataformats
  This directory contains selected postings which have appeared in the newsgroup sci.data.formats, which was newgroup-ed on 6/3/93. The postings which have been selected are those which, in DCW's judgement, might prove useful to astronomers trying to find out about various other data format standards. There is a FAQ for the newsgroup. In addition, the directory contains selected traffic from various other newsgroups.
• wgas
  This directory contains selected FITS-related postings which have appeared on the LISTSERV exploder "wgas@Hypatia.gsfc.nasa.gov". The WGAS exploder carries traffic related to the business of the AAS Working Group for Astronomical Software plus miscellaneous traffic about astronomical computing in general, including FITS sometimes. The exploder server supports a full archive; send a "help" message to "listserv@Hypatia.gsfc.nasa.gov" for information.
• sciastro
  Selected FITS-related traffic in newsgroup sci.astro. An interesting discussion of physical units usage (e.g. SI vs. cgs) is in file sciastro_si.9201 .
• compcompression
  This directory contains selected traffic from newsgroup comp.compression which, in DCW's judgement, might prove useful to the FITS community as it considers compression conventions for astronomy.