From owner-fitsbits Thu Apr 2 00:12:30 1998 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id AAA02427 for fitsbits-spinner; Thu, 2 Apr 1998 00:12:30 -0500 Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id AAA02424 for ; Thu, 2 Apr 1998 00:12:27 -0500 Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) id AAA16862 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Thu, 2 Apr 1998 00:12:26 -0500 (EST) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id XAA02305 for ; Wed, 1 Apr 1998 23:41:32 -0500 Received: from newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.17]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) with ESMTP id XAA16829 for ; Wed, 1 Apr 1998 23:41:30 -0500 (EST) Received: (from news at localhost) by newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id XAA16632; Wed, 1 Apr 1998 23:41:29 -0500 To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Date: 2 Apr 1998 04:41:22 GMT From: babic at physics.uq.oz.au (Boris Babic) Message-ID: <6fv4ti$7m2$1 at nargun.cc.uq.edu.au> Organization: Department of Physics, The University of Queensland Path: newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu!newsgate.duke.edu!nntprelay.mathworks.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!203.12.176.153!news.mel.aone.net.au!newsfeed-in.aone.net.au!news.mel.connect.com.au!munnari.OZ.AU!bunyip.cc.uq.edu.au!bohr.physics.uq.edu.au!babic Subject: RA-DEC from DSS headers Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Sender: owner-fitsbits at marmoset.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk Hi I was wondering if anyone could tell me how to calculate an objects RA and DEC from the plate solution co-eff's as given in the DSS fits headers. with the skyview headers its possible to calculate the positons given CRVAL1,CRVAL2 ,CDELT2,CDELT1 and the NAXIS1,NAXIS2 values ,although it doesnt appear that simple with the DSS headers. Note: Skyview returns the DSS headers if the field is small,so in this case i cant work out the RA-DEC either. thanks boris From owner-fitsbits Thu Apr 2 13:23:32 1998 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id NAA05654 for fitsbits-spinner; Thu, 2 Apr 1998 13:23:32 -0500 Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id NAA05651 for ; Thu, 2 Apr 1998 13:23:28 -0500 Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) id NAA17615 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Thu, 2 Apr 1998 13:23:27 -0500 (EST) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id MAA05439 for ; Thu, 2 Apr 1998 12:16:15 -0500 Received: from newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.17]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) with ESMTP id MAA17545 for ; Thu, 2 Apr 1998 12:16:14 -0500 (EST) Received: (from news at localhost) by newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id MAA15458; Thu, 2 Apr 1998 12:16:12 -0500 To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Date: Thu, 02 Apr 1998 12:03:49 -0500 From: Vincent Kargatis Message-ID: <3523C4F5.41C6 at jackaldog.gsfc.nasa.gov> Organization: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center -- Greenbelt, Maryland USA Path: newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu!newsgate.duke.edu!nntp-out.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!newsfeed.wli.net!ptdnetP!newsgate.ptd.net!newsfeed.nyu.edu!news.columbia.edu!osiris.giss.nasa.gov!newsfeed.gsfc.nasa.gov!usenet Subject: [!] Web Tools for Astronomical Catalog Viewing Newsgroups: sci.astro,sci.astro.fits Sender: owner-fitsbits at marmoset.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk New Web-based Archive Tools at the ADF Richard A. White, Cynthia Cheung (NASA GSFC) Kirk Borne, Ed Shaya, Jim Blackwell, Vincent Kargatis (Raytheon STX) Jeff de La Beaujardiere (UMBC) The Astrophysics Data Facility (ADF) at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center has introduced a new series of World Wide Web based tools for browsing and manipulating the Astronomical Data Center (ADC) archives and using the results to query other data centers for information. These developments serve both to modernize access to the ADC and to come into compliance with Astrobrowse, the communication protocols being established for astronomical data centers. These Web based tools are: 1) VIEWER - a fast and simple way to view ADC catalogs and create subset tables based on user selected data ranges. 2) CATSEYE - creates plots of table data and allows interactive query for information on individual plotted data points. 3) IMPReSS - searches a database for observations made by NASA missions that are within user selected regions of the sky, plots the perimeters of these observations on a sky map, and queries the archive sites for the data and browse data. IMPReSS may also be used independently with user supplied coordinates or object names (which are resolved into coordinates through hidden queries to NED and SIMBAD). To reach all these web tools and for more about future developments, see the web page located at: http://adf.gsfc.nasa.gov/adf/visualization/ Full descriptions: VIEWER The VIEWER can be accessed in several ways at the ADC home site. It begins either with its own catalog selection page or through the ReadMe page of any ADC catalogs or journal table holding selected through the standard ADC pages. Each catalog in the ADC is composed of one or more tables and the user is prompted to select from amongst these. Then, detailed information on each column composing that table, is presented, including the range limits (for numerical fields). The columns of interest can be selected and for each column user preferred limits on the range of values can be set. The requested subset of the catalog is returned along with a legend that includes information on the units and meaning of each column. One can sort the output table by the values of a chosen column, download the file, or rename for further use. If the table is not renamed, it is overwritten by subsequent tables. User work areas are identified by cookies that expire after 4 days. All of the user created tables can be plotted by another tool called CATSEYE. CATSEYE CATSEYE is a tool that makes scatter plots of numerical columns from the VIEWER output tables. It first presents a list of all of the tables that a user has created in the last 4 days. The user selects which tables should be plotted together and which columns of each table are to be used for the x-axis and the y-axis. Several plot symbols are available. Below the plot there is a table to fill in that allows one to reset limits for the axes or to change to logarithms in either or both axes. All plots are GIF images and may be saved locally by the user's browser and printed. When the mouse is used to click on a datapoint of interest, the entry line from the appropriate table and that table's name are displayed in a third frame. In crowded plot regions, more than one line from one or more tables may be displayed. Finally, one can click on the letter "I" (for IMPReSS) at the beginning of the entry line to input the positional coordinates of the object to IMPReSS. IMPReSS (IMage PeRimeters of Sky Surveys) IMPReSS is a graphical interface to astronomical observing logs that presents the user with plane of the sky outlines or silhouettes of pointed observations obtained by space-based telescopes. It searches for NASA missions that have observed within the user selected region of the sky. It displays the aperture footprints (fields-of-view) on the sky, overlaying multiple observations where necessary. The search can also be restricted by the observation date. Once the user has selected sets of observations of interest, IMPReSS will aid in retrieving publicly available data by sending requests to data archive sites for detailed information, browse images, and data files. Although the emphasis is on obtaining targeted mission data, IMPReSS also provides links to all-sky surveys and automates the procedure of obtaining cutouts that cover the user's selected region. The primary archive sites for which IMPReSS currently holds metadata are: the National Space Sciences Data Center (NSSDC), the High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center (HEASARC), and the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI). -- Vincent Kargatis Address: Code 631 Archive Scientist, Raytheon STX Goddard Space Flight Center PH 301-286-6128 Greenbelt MD 20771 FAX 301-286-1771 e-mail: kargatis at xfiles.gsfc.nasa.gov From owner-fitsbits Fri Apr 3 10:34:34 1998 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id KAA10451 for fitsbits-spinner; Fri, 3 Apr 1998 10:34:34 -0500 Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id KAA10448 for ; Fri, 3 Apr 1998 10:34:31 -0500 Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) id KAA18883 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Fri, 3 Apr 1998 10:34:28 -0500 (EST) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id CAA08463 for ; Fri, 3 Apr 1998 02:49:26 -0500 Received: from newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.17]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) with ESMTP id CAA18366 for ; Fri, 3 Apr 1998 02:49:21 -0500 (EST) Received: (from news at localhost) by newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id CAA20551; Fri, 3 Apr 1998 02:49:20 -0500 To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Date: Fri, 03 Apr 1998 08:48:32 +0100 From: Juan Jose Garcia Adeva Message-ID: <35249450.EDEB2B35 at essex.ac.uk> Organization: JET Joint Undertaking Path: newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu!newsgate.duke.edu!nntprelay.mathworks.com!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!rill.news.pipex.net!pipex!bore.news.pipex.net!pipex!not-for-mail Subject: FITS data format Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Sender: owner-fitsbits at marmoset.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk <<< No Message Collected >>> From owner-fitsbits Mon Apr 6 09:21:55 1998 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id JAA26181 for fitsbits-spinner; Mon, 6 Apr 1998 09:21:55 -0400 Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id JAA26178 for ; Mon, 6 Apr 1998 09:21:51 -0400 Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) id JAA21908 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Mon, 6 Apr 1998 09:21:50 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id IAA25971 for ; Mon, 6 Apr 1998 08:27:37 -0400 Received: from newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.17]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) with ESMTP id IAA21876 for ; Mon, 6 Apr 1998 08:27:35 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from news at localhost) by newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id IAA04694; Mon, 6 Apr 1998 08:27:34 -0400 To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Date: Mon, 06 Apr 1998 13:06:08 +0100 From: Dave Strickland Message-ID: <3528C530.7571 at star.sr.bham.ac.uk> Organization: The University of Birmingham, UK. Path: newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu!hearst.acc.Virginia.EDU!uunet!in3.uu.net!news-peer-east.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!rill.news.pipex.net!pipex!news-lond.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!nntp.news.xara.net!xara.net!server5.netnews.ja.net!server3.netnews.ja.net!server1.netnews.ja.net!bham!not-for-mail References: <35249450.EDEB2B35 at essex.ac.uk> Subject: Re: FITS data format Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Sender: owner-fitsbits at marmoset.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk Juan Jose Garcia Adeva wrote: > > Hello, > > I have to implement some code in C or C++ for writing and reading FITS > files. I have the definition of the format, and I wonder if some one > knows about some pointer to find public source code for this tasks, as I > find it a bit hard to start from scratch. Thanks, > > Juanjo Try http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/software/fitsio/fitsio.html if you haven't already found out about it... Dave From owner-fitsbits Thu Apr 9 09:23:24 1998 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id JAA10274 for fitsbits-spinner; Thu, 9 Apr 1998 09:23:24 -0400 Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id JAA10267 for ; Thu, 9 Apr 1998 09:23:18 -0400 Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) id JAA25662 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Thu, 9 Apr 1998 09:23:17 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id MAA05188 for ; Wed, 8 Apr 1998 12:19:24 -0400 Received: from newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.17]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) with ESMTP id MAA24404 for ; Wed, 8 Apr 1998 12:19:23 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from news at localhost) by newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id MAA18255; Wed, 8 Apr 1998 12:19:23 -0400 To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Date: Wed, 08 Apr 1998 12:01:51 -0400 From: Doug Mink Message-ID: <352B9F6F.266971B5 at cfa.harvard.edu> Organization: Harvard University University Information Systems Path: newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu!newsgate.duke.edu!nntprelay.mathworks.com!newshub.northeast.verio.net!nntp.upenn.edu!dsinc!pitt.edu!bb3.andrew.cmu.edu!honeysuckle.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!oitnews.harvard.edu!cfanews.harvard.edu!131.142.10.153 References: <6fv4ti$7m2$1 at nargun.cc.uq.edu.au> Subject: Re: RA-DEC from DSS headers Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Sender: owner-fitsbits at marmoset.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk The WCSTools package, at http://tdc-www.harvard.edu/software/wcstools/ has code to decode the DSS header information. That code has been included in the SAOimage, SAOtng, and Skycat image browsers for several years now. It is in C and is fairly modular for easy inclusion in other software. WCSTools includes programs to convert lists of (x,y) coordinates to RA and Dec (J2000 or B1950) and vice versa. -Doug Mink From owner-fitsbits Thu Apr 9 09:22:49 1998 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id JAA10262 for fitsbits-spinner; Thu, 9 Apr 1998 09:22:49 -0400 Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id JAA10259 for ; Thu, 9 Apr 1998 09:22:45 -0400 Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) id JAA25658 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Thu, 9 Apr 1998 09:22:44 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id DAA02926 for ; Wed, 8 Apr 1998 03:26:16 -0400 Received: from newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.17]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) with ESMTP id DAA23839 for ; Wed, 8 Apr 1998 03:26:15 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from news at localhost) by newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id DAA20500; Wed, 8 Apr 1998 03:26:14 -0400 To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Date: Wed, 08 Apr 1998 07:26:03 GMT From: caviegr2 at boat.bt.removethis.com (Gary) Message-ID: <352b2636.3483419 at news.axion.bt.co.uk> Organization: BT Path: newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu!newsgate.duke.edu!nntprelay.mathworks.com!portc04.blue.aol.com!newsfeed.wli.net!su-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!diablo.theplanet.net!btnet-feed2!btnet!bt!not-for-mail Reply-To: caviegr2 at boat.bt.removethis.com Subject: fitsio package Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Sender: owner-fitsbits at marmoset.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk Hi all, I downloaded the fitsio package from the heasarc site, but cannot get anything to compile, not even the cookbook program. I'm running Borland C++ v4 under Windows 95, and would appreciate any tips as to what I'm doing wrong. TIA Gary From owner-fitsbits Thu Apr 9 11:52:26 1998 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id LAA11137 for fitsbits-spinner; Thu, 9 Apr 1998 11:52:26 -0400 Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id LAA11134 for ; Thu, 9 Apr 1998 11:52:23 -0400 Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) id LAA26196 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Thu, 9 Apr 1998 11:52:22 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by marmoset.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id LAA11117 for ; Thu, 9 Apr 1998 11:50:23 -0400 Received: from palantir.cv.nrao.edu (tismail at palantir.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.254]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) with ESMTP id LAA26187 for ; Thu, 9 Apr 1998 11:50:21 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from tismail at localhost) by palantir.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id LAA05779 for ; Thu, 9 Apr 1998 11:50:20 -0400 Received: from wheelo.gsfc.nasa.gov(128.183.50.20) by palantir.cv.nrao.edu via smap (V1.3) id sma005773; Thu Apr 9 11:49:56 1998 Received: from tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov (tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov [128.183.127.109]) by wheelo.gsfc.nasa.gov (8.8.5/8.8.4) with SMTP id LAA22655 for ; Thu, 9 Apr 1998 11:49:19 -0400 (EDT) Received: by tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id LAA08667; Thu, 9 Apr 1998 11:49:13 -0400 Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 11:49:13 -0400 From: pence at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov (William Pence) Message-Id: <199804091549.LAA08667 at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov> To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Subject: Re: fitsio package X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Sender: owner-fitsbits at marmoset.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk Gary, The 'makepc.bat' batch file was designed to build CFITSIO with Borland C++. If this fails send me a listing of the error messages. -Bill Pence > Hi all, > > I downloaded the fitsio package from the heasarc site, but cannot get > anything to compile, not even the cookbook program. I'm running > Borland C++ v4 under Windows 95, and would appreciate any tips as to > what I'm doing wrong. > > TIA > > Gary > > From owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu Wed Apr 15 11:08:57 1998 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) id LAA29333 for fitsbits-spinner; Wed, 15 Apr 1998 11:08:02 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: kochab.cv.nrao.edu: majordom set sender to owner-fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu using -f Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (dwells at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id LAA29328 for ; Wed, 15 Apr 1998 11:07:59 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) id LAA03243 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Wed, 15 Apr 1998 11:07:56 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (root at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id KAA29167 for ; Wed, 15 Apr 1998 10:27:16 -0400 (EDT) Received: from palantir.cv.nrao.edu (tismail at palantir.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.254]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) with ESMTP id KAA03169 for ; Wed, 15 Apr 1998 10:27:11 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from tismail at localhost) by palantir.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id KAA25733 for ; Wed, 15 Apr 1998 10:27:07 -0400 Received: from nssdc-e.gsfc.nasa.gov(128.183.190.147) by palantir.cv.nrao.edu via smap (V1.3) id sma025727; Wed Apr 15 10:27:02 1998 Received: (from rwhite at localhost) by nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov (8.8.6/8.8.6) id KAA17054; Wed, 15 Apr 1998 10:24:32 -0400 (EDT) From: Richard White Message-Id: <199804151424.KAA17054 at nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov> Subject: Draft of FITS standard revision 1.2 available for comment To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu, iaufwg at nrao.edu, vlbi at nrao.edu, comm5 at nrao.edu, aips2 at nrao.edu, bananas at marmoset.cv.nrao.edu Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 10:24:31 -0400 (EDT) Cc: rwhite at nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov (Richard White) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk PLEASE REDISTRIBUTE WIDELY Call for comments on Revised FITS Standard The NASA/Science Office of Standards and Tecnology (NOST) Draft Standard 100-1.2, Definition of the Flexible Image Transport System (FITS), is now available for review and comment. This is a major revision to the previous version 1.1 of the FITS standard that was adopted in 1995. This Standard is being developed by a NOST-sponsored Technical Panel. FITS Technical Panel Robert J. Hanisch, Chair STScI Barry M Schlesinger, Secretary NASA/FITS Support Office Allen Farris STScI Eric W. Greisen NRAO William D. Pence NASA/GSFC Peter J. Teuben UMd Randall W. Thompson STScI/CSC(formerly at GSFC/IUE) Archibald Warnock A/WWW Enterprises The purpose of distributing this Draft Revision to the NOST FITS Standard is to provide for community review and comment. The Technical Panel will review and respond to all comments. The Panel will either incorporate the substance of a comment into the Standard, or it will instead provide the reasons for not doing so and describe any revision to the Standard motivated by the comment. After the panel has completed review of and responded to all comments, the final version will be submitted to NOST for certification. Upon certification, the final version number will be 2.0. It will then be submitted to IAU Commission 5 for formal acceptance as the IAU standard. Copies of the standard are available in two ways: paper copies and access to electronic copies via the WWW. Electronic copies are available formatted for LaTeX, PostScript, gziped Postscript and html. The electronic versions are posted on the FITS Support Office web site homepage at http://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/ Paper versions may be requested from the National Space Science Data Center Coordinated Request and User Support Office (CRUSO) at Coordinated Request User Support Office (CRUSO) Code 633, National Space Science Data Center NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, Maryland 20771, USA E-mail: request at nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov Telephone: (301) 286-6695 FAX: (301) 286-1635 All comments should be mailed to the fitsbits exploder at fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu, or posted to the newsgroup sci.astro.fits. Dr. William Pence, a member of the technical panel, will oversee the reading, discussion, and panel response to all comments. There will be an approximately 3 month period for comments. All comments should be submitted by July 15, 1998. The development of the standard and its certification is supported by the FITS Support Office in the Astrophysics Data Facility at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. FITS Support Office Code 631 NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD 20771 USA e-mail: fits at fits.gsfc.nasa.gov http://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/ +1-301-286-6695 List of Significant Changes Between Versions 1.1 and 1.2 (Draft) of the NOST FITS Standard Section Description of Changes ------- --------------------------------------------- 3: Definitions have been added, deleted, or revised: Added: ASCII NULL, DAT, Fraction, Heap, IAUFWG, Mantissa, Primary HDU, Repeat count Deleted: AIPS, CfA, ESO, NOAO, NRAO, STScI Revised: Entry, Floating point, Indexed keyword 4.6: New section describing Physical Blocking. Incorporates some text previously contained in Appendix B. 5.1.2.2: Explicitly states that null-valued keywords are allowed. 5.1.2.3: Keyword comment, if present, must be preceeded by a slash. 5.2: References to ANSI FORTRAN-77 have been removed and replaced with explicit definitions of free format values. 5.2: Keyword values are restricted to be a single value and not an array of values. 5.2.1: Fixed format character string values no longer need to be padded with blanks to be at least 8 characters long. (e.g., XTENSION= 'TABLE' is now a legal keyword record). 5.2.1: Previous requirement that reading the data values should not require decoding any more than the first eight characters of a character string value of a keyword has been dropped. 5.2.2: Explicitly states that a logical value must consist of a single `T' or `F' character, followed only by a space or a slash character. 5.2.3: Explicitly states that an integer value must not contain embedded spaces and is always interpreted as a signed decimal value. 5.2.4: Explicitly states that a real floating point value must not contain embedded spaces. The decimal point is not required, so values like 12, and 1E30 are valid, but E30 is not. 5.2.5: Fixed format for complex integers is no longer defined. Free format complex integer values must be enclosed in parentheses separated by a comma, e.g. (14, -45). 5.2.6: Fixed format for complex reals is no longer defined. Free format complex real values must be enclosed in parentheses separated by a comma, e.g. (14.5, -4.5E+5). 5.4.1.1 Explicitly states that no other keywords may intervene between the SIMPLE and last NAXISn keyword in the primary header. The SIMPLE keyword must not appear in extension headers. 5.4.1.2 Explicitly states that no other keywords may intervene between the XTENSION and last NAXISn keyword in an extension. 5.4.2 The description of the DATE and DATE-OBS keywords has been modified in accordance with the new Y2000 FITS agreement. 6.3 Definition of IEEE floating point has been moved to appendix H. 8.1 Explicitly states that no other keywords may intervene between the XTENSION and TFIELDS keywords in an ASCII table extension. The TFORM format codes must be in upper case. Numeric values in ASCII tables are always decimal, and never binary, octal, hexadecimal, or other representation. 8.1.5 New discussion about selecting a format appropriate to the data. References to ANSI FORTRAN-77 have been removed and replaced with explicit definitions of how each format should be interpreted. 8.2 Definition of the image extension has been added. 8.3 Definition of binary table extension has been moved from Appendix A into the standard itself. The TFORM format codes must be in upper case. 8.3.4 Explicit definitions are given for the possible display formats. Appendix A: (new) gives a formal syntax for keyword card images. Appendix D: (new) discusses time scale issues related to the new DATE-OBS keyword format. Appendix H: (new) defines IEEE floating point formats ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Types of keywords that are explicitly allowed in the new FITS standard ----------------------------------------------------------------------- KEYWORD = / the value of this keyword is undefined XTENSION= 'TABLE' / string can be less than 8 chars long REALVAL = 14 / decimal point is not required for reals COMPLEXI= (12, -45) / complex integer value COMPLEXR= (12.5, 5.6E-3) / complex real value DATE = '2000-01-01T11:45:59.999' / new date format Types of keywords that are explicitly disallowed in the new FITS standard ----------------------------------------------------------------------- KEYWORD = 3.1415 Value of Pi (no slash before comment) KEYWORD = 1,2,3,4,5,8 / arrays of values are not allowed LOGICAL = TRUE / logical values must be only T or F INTVAL = 0777 / must not be interpreted as octal number INTVAL = 124 56 / embedded spaces not allowed in integers REALVAL = 1.34 E+11 / embedded spaces not allowed in reals REALVAL = E20 / number preceeding the exponent is required From owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu Wed Apr 15 11:08:57 1998 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) id LAA29326 for fitsbits-spinner; Wed, 15 Apr 1998 11:07:42 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: kochab.cv.nrao.edu: majordom set sender to owner-fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu using -f Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (dwells at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id LAA29321 for ; Wed, 15 Apr 1998 11:07:39 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) id LAA03238 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Wed, 15 Apr 1998 11:07:36 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (root at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id TAA05279 for ; Tue, 14 Apr 1998 19:29:54 -0400 (EDT) Received: from gorilla.cv.nrao.edu (bcotton at gorilla.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.9]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) with ESMTP id TAA02372 for ; Tue, 14 Apr 1998 19:29:50 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from bcotton at localhost) by gorilla.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) id TAA09238; Tue, 14 Apr 1998 19:29:49 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 19:29:49 -0400 (EDT) From: Bill Cotton Message-Id: <199804142329.TAA09238 at gorilla.cv.nrao.edu> To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Subject: FITSview family update Sender: owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk Update of FITSview Family (Windows, XWindows, Macintosh) April 14, 1998 Updates of the FITSview family of FITS image viewers are now available for FITS format astronomical images. These viewers feature manipulation of the display (brightness, contrast, pseudo color), zoom and scroll, blinking images for comparison, displaying 3-D images as a "movie", and determining the celestial position and brightness of features in the image. Celestial positions are determined for WCS, DSS and IRAF CD-matrix positions. All defined FITS data types are supported (8, 16, 32 bit integers and 32 and 64 bit IEEE), as are blanked pixels. Two and three dimensional simple FITS images are supported. In addition, gzip compressed files may be read directly. Extensive online documentation is included. This release features 1) more intelligent guesses of the range of pixel values to display for high dynamic range images, 2) a histogram equalization option and 3) support for IRAF CD-matrix positions. FITSview family members ----------------------- FITSview version 2.0 (MS Windows 95/NT) First native Windows 95/NT release. Additional new Features: - Toolbar - Revised online help - Improved installation procedure - Now uses 128 colors (was 64) FITSview version 2.0 (MS Windows 3.1) Additional new Feature: - Now uses 128 colors (was 64) XFITSview version 1.2 XFITSview runs on Unix/X-Windows systems and requires the use of Motif. This version is distributed as source with binaries for selected systems. Additional new features: - Improved on line help - Now uses 128 colors (was 64) MacFITSview version 1.4 (Apple Macintosh 68k and PPC) Availability ----------- All of these are available at no cost via anonymous ftp server fits.cv.nrao.edu: FITSview for Windows: ftp://fits.cv.nrao.edu/fits/os-support/ms-windows/fitsview These are distributed as self extracting installation kits, see ftp://fits.cv.nrao.edu/fits/os-support/ms-windows/fitsview/fitsv20.txt for installation details. for Windows 95/NT: ftp://fits.cv.nrao.edu/fits/os-support/ms-windows/fitsview/FV32v20.exe for Windows 3.x: ftp://fits.cv.nrao.edu/fits/os-support/ms-windows/fitsview/FV16v20.exe MacFITSview: ftp://fits.cv.nrao.edu/fits/os-support/mac-os/macfitsview These are distributed as BinHex encoded executables. Online documentation and test FITS files are also available. for Power PC models: ftp://fits.cv.nrao.edu/fits/os-support/mac-os/macfitsview/MacFITSview.PPC.hqx for 68K models: ftp://fits.cv.nrao.edu/fits/os-support/mac-os/macfitsview/MacFITSview.68k.hqx XFITSview: ftp://fits.cv.nrao.edu/fits/os-support/unix/xfitsview/ The source is distributed in a gzipped tar archive: ftp://fits.cv.nrao.edu/fits/os-support/unix/xfitsview/XFITSview1.2.tar.gz Selected binary executables are available, see the readme file for details. Bill Cotton From owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu Wed Apr 15 17:10:56 1998 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) id RAA04950 for fitsbits-spinner; Wed, 15 Apr 1998 17:10:35 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: kochab.cv.nrao.edu: majordom set sender to owner-fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu using -f Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (dwells at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id RAA04945 for ; Wed, 15 Apr 1998 17:10:32 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) id RAA04016 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Wed, 15 Apr 1998 17:10:30 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (root at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id RAA04935 for ; Wed, 15 Apr 1998 17:08:37 -0400 (EDT) Received: from palantir.cv.nrao.edu (tismail at palantir.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.254]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) with ESMTP id RAA04004 for ; Wed, 15 Apr 1998 17:08:34 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from tismail at localhost) by palantir.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id RAA17838 for ; Wed, 15 Apr 1998 17:08:32 -0400 Received: from lilikoi.jach.hawaii.edu(128.171.90.227) by palantir.cv.nrao.edu via smap (V1.3) id sma017832; Wed Apr 15 17:08:19 1998 Received: from lilikoi [128.171.90.227] by lilikoi with smtp (Exim 1.81 #3) id 0yPZJJ-0002Nh-00; Wed, 15 Apr 1998 11:01:37 -1000 Message-ID: <35352030.730C at jach.hawaii.edu> Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 11:01:36 -1000 From: Maren Purves Organization: Joint Astronomy Centre, Hilo, HI X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (X11; I; SunOS 5.5 sun4m) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Subject: fitsio package - on VxWorks References: <199804091549.LAA08667 at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk Hi all, I'm trying to run fitsio on a VME crate running VxWorks. The test program runs fine and with the expected (hoped for) output. Now comes the part where it doesn't anymore: I can create a file, write some header information to it and then the data array. When adding more header information at some point it starts corrupting my data array. I have traced it down to that the data array gets corrupted in the routine that writes it. Adding more header lines neither moves nor increases the size of the corrupted area. Has anybody seen a similar problem? Any idea what I might be doing wrong? Thanks in advance, Maren Purves, UKIRT, Hilo, HI From owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu Wed Apr 15 17:30:13 1998 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) id RAA05012 for fitsbits-spinner; Wed, 15 Apr 1998 17:30:10 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: kochab.cv.nrao.edu: majordom set sender to owner-fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu using -f Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (dwells at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id RAA05007 for ; Wed, 15 Apr 1998 17:30:07 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) id RAA04067 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Wed, 15 Apr 1998 17:30:01 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (root at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id RAA04997 for ; Wed, 15 Apr 1998 17:28:19 -0400 (EDT) Received: from palantir.cv.nrao.edu (tismail at palantir.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.254]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) with ESMTP id RAA04042 for ; Wed, 15 Apr 1998 17:28:15 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from tismail at localhost) by palantir.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id RAA19025 for ; Wed, 15 Apr 1998 17:28:12 -0400 Received: from wheelo.gsfc.nasa.gov(128.183.50.20) by palantir.cv.nrao.edu via smap (V1.3) id sma019019; Wed Apr 15 17:27:58 1998 Received: from tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov (tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov [128.183.127.109]) by wheelo.gsfc.nasa.gov (8.8.5/8.8.4) with SMTP id RAA18824; Wed, 15 Apr 1998 17:27:24 -0400 (EDT) Received: by tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id RAA16583; Wed, 15 Apr 1998 17:27:13 -0400 Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 17:27:13 -0400 From: pence at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov (William Pence) Message-Id: <199804152127.RAA16583 at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov> To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu, m.purves at jach.hawaii.edu Subject: Re: fitsio package - on VxWorks Cc: pence at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Sender: owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk Maren, Send me more details (offline from this group) about which version of fitsio you are using and what fitsio subroutines are being called. -Bill Pence > I'm trying to run fitsio on a VME crate running VxWorks. The test > program runs fine and with the expected (hoped for) output. > > Now comes the part where it doesn't anymore: > I can create a file, write some header information to it > and then the data array. When adding more header information > at some point it starts corrupting my data array. I have traced > it down to that the data array gets corrupted in the routine > that writes it. Adding more header lines neither moves nor > increases the size of the corrupted area. > Maren Purves, > UKIRT, Hilo, HI From owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu Thu Apr 16 11:02:26 1998 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) id LAA21908 for fitsbits-spinner; Thu, 16 Apr 1998 11:01:50 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: kochab.cv.nrao.edu: majordom set sender to owner-fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu using -f Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (dwells at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id LAA21903 for ; Thu, 16 Apr 1998 11:01:47 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) id LAA04880 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Thu, 16 Apr 1998 11:01:44 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (root at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id KAA21890 for ; Thu, 16 Apr 1998 10:58:09 -0400 (EDT) Received: from newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.17]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) with ESMTP id KAA04865 for ; Thu, 16 Apr 1998 10:58:06 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from news at localhost) by newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id KAA28303; Thu, 16 Apr 1998 10:58:05 -0400 To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Date: 16 Apr 1998 10:57:58 -0400 From: Don Wells Message-ID: Organization: nrao Path: newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu!not-for-mail References: <199804151424.KAA17054 at nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov> Reply-To: dwells at nrao.edu Subject: Re: Draft of FITS standard revision 1.2 available for comment Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Sender: owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk Dear friends of FITS, >>>>> "R.White" == Richard White writes: R.White> The NASA/Science Office of Standards and Tecnology (NOST) R.White> Draft Standard 100-1.2, Definition of the Flexible Image R.White> Transport System (FITS), is now available for review and R.White> comment. This is a major revision to the previous version R.White> 1.1 of the FITS standard that was adopted in 1995. .. Acting as Chair of the IAU FITS Working Group (the body which controls the FITS standard), I want to take this opportunity to thank NASA Headquarters, the NASA/NOST and the FITS Support Office at NASA/GSFC for supporting this project to produce a comprehensive, definitive version of the FITS standards. Their demonstrated will to maintain their support of this project for so many years in the face of budget difficulties and organizational changes is admirable. The FITS Technical Panel (Hanisch [Chair], Schlesinger, Farris, Greisen, Pence, Teuben, Thompson, Warnock) which produced this document gets my highest praise for their service to the community. The Panel asked for my opinion on several technical issues in recent years. During those discussions I became quite aware of the dedication, professionalism and attention to detail which has characterized their work. As an example of "attention to detail", I cite the subtle wording of the last sentence in section 5.1.2.1 (Keyword) on page 15: 'For indexed keywords with a single index the counter shall not have leading zeroes.' Why do they say 'with a single index'?!? Well, the answer is that, although the indexed keywords mentioned in the document (e.g., NAXIS2, CRPIX1) obey this traditional rule, the panel want to leave open the possibility for double-indexed keywords to have fixed format; such keywords are likely to be needed in a future World Coordinate System [WCS] agreement. So, this document is not merely codifying existing FITS practice (the formal mission of the NASA project), it is also establishing meta-rules which prepare the path for the evolution of FITS. R.White> The purpose of distributing this Draft Revision to the R.White> NOST FITS Standard is to provide for community review and R.White> comment. The Technical Panel will review and respond to R.White> all comments.. R.White> All comments should be mailed to the fitsbits exploder at R.White> fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu, or posted to the newsgroup R.White> sci.astro.fits.. I urge the entire worldwide FITS community to review this document and comment on it in sci.astro.fits/fitsbits. The document is destined to become the definitive response to the question 'what are the FITS standards?' and it is, therefore, important that the official answer should represent a true consensus of the entire astronomy community. Public discussion in this newsgroup/mailing-list is the best way to create and exhibit such consensus. R.White> .., the final version.. will.. be submitted to IAU R.White> Commission 5 for formal acceptance as the IAU standard. After NOST certifies that the work of the Panel appears to represent consensus of the community, the document will be considered by the three regional FITS committees. After all three have approved it by formal votes, it will be considered by the IAU FITS Working Group. The IAUFWG has the authority, under a resolution of the IAU General Assembly, to declare the document (by a formal vote) to be the official version of the FITS standards, superceding the various papers which have been published in Astronomy and Astrophysics Supplements over the past 17 years. I intend to argue that a version of this document should also be published in an issue of A&A Supplements, because it is critical to our long-term archiving strategy that the documentation of our bitstreams should be available in archival professional journals which will survive at least as long as our bitstreams will survive. -Don -- Donald C. Wells Associate Scientist dwells at nrao.edu http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~dwells National Radio Astronomy Observatory +1-804-296-0277 520 Edgemont Road, Charlottesville, Virginia 22903-2475 USA From owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu Thu Apr 16 14:41:23 1998 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) id OAA23310 for fitsbits-spinner; Thu, 16 Apr 1998 14:40:37 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (dwells at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id OAA23305 for ; Thu, 16 Apr 1998 14:40:34 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) id OAA05122 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Thu, 16 Apr 1998 14:40:31 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (root at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id OAA23283 for ; Thu, 16 Apr 1998 14:20:16 -0400 (EDT) Received: from palantir.cv.nrao.edu (tismail at palantir.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.254]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) with ESMTP id OAA05095 for ; Thu, 16 Apr 1998 14:20:14 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from tismail at localhost) by palantir.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id OAA08565 for ; Thu, 16 Apr 1998 14:20:12 -0400 Received: from lilikoi.jach.hawaii.edu(128.171.90.227) by palantir.cv.nrao.edu via smap (V1.3) id sma008553; Thu Apr 16 14:19:42 1998 Received: from lilikoi [128.171.90.227] by lilikoi with smtp (Exim 1.81 #3) id 0yPt9g-0002u4-00; Thu, 16 Apr 1998 08:13:00 -1000 Message-ID: <35364A2B.617 at jach.hawaii.edu> Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 08:12:59 -1000 From: Maren Purves Organization: Joint Astronomy Centre, Hilo, HI X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (X11; I; SunOS 5.5 sun4m) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Subject: fitsio on VxWorks - solved Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk Dear all, as I had a number of very helpful people sending me email without copying them to the list, Bill Pence solved my problem by suggesting we upgrade fitsio (we were running 1.2). I got the new version of fitsio, made the usual VxWorks modifications, and it works now. Usual VxWorks modifications: The problems with VxWorks are: - there is no Fortran that I know of (so all Fortran files and references have to be removed, otherwise gmake falls over) - there are no main() routines (so one either has to rename them or to move them out of the way too) This is on a Heurikon Nitro 60 board in a VME crate, with the operating system being VxWorks 5.3.1/Tornado 1.0.1, cross compiled on a Sun clone (running Solaris 2.5), writing FITS files to a NFS mounted disk. Thanks to everybody, expecially Bill Pence, Maren Purves From owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu Thu Apr 16 15:53:49 1998 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) id PAA26575 for fitsbits-spinner; Thu, 16 Apr 1998 15:51:37 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (dwells at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id PAA26570 for ; Thu, 16 Apr 1998 15:51:34 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) id PAA05299 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Thu, 16 Apr 1998 15:51:29 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (root at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id PAA24581 for ; Thu, 16 Apr 1998 15:40:46 -0400 (EDT) Received: from palantir.cv.nrao.edu (tismail at palantir.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.254]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) with ESMTP id PAA05233 for ; Thu, 16 Apr 1998 15:40:41 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from tismail at localhost) by palantir.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id PAA10679 for ; Thu, 16 Apr 1998 15:40:39 -0400 Received: from head-cfa.harvard.edu(131.142.41.8) by palantir.cv.nrao.edu via smap (V1.3) id sma010675; Thu Apr 16 15:40:29 1998 Received: from urania by head-cfa (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id PAA11808; Thu, 16 Apr 1998 15:33:05 -0400 Received: by urania (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id PAA01740; Thu, 16 Apr 1998 15:33:03 -0400 Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 15:33:03 -0400 From: jcm at urania.harvard.edu (Jonathan McDowell) Message-Id: <199804161933.PAA01740 at urania> To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Subject: FITS standard Sender: owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk The new FITS standard draft seems pretty reasonable. I may not have been paying attention to the Y2K discussion enough, but I am puzzled by the statement in 5.4.2.1 that UTC shall be used for the DATE keyword 'for all data sets created on earth'. Is it felt that there are practical difficulties in realizing UTC for computers not on earth? This seems unlikely to the accuracy required by the DATE keyword; it is also not a frivolous question; there are enough laptops flying on Shuttle and Mir missions which might in principle store their data in FITS. I suggest removing the 'on earth' qualification (or replacing it by 'in the solar system', since I can see there might be simultaneity issues for interstellar probes...) - Jonathan McDowell From owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu Thu Apr 16 17:22:36 1998 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) id RAA27232 for fitsbits-spinner; Thu, 16 Apr 1998 17:21:05 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (dwells at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id RAA27227 for ; Thu, 16 Apr 1998 17:21:02 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) id RAA05392 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Thu, 16 Apr 1998 17:21:00 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (root at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id RAA27209 for ; Thu, 16 Apr 1998 17:15:07 -0400 (EDT) Received: from palantir.cv.nrao.edu (tismail at palantir.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.254]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) with ESMTP id RAA05381 for ; Thu, 16 Apr 1998 17:15:03 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from tismail at localhost) by palantir.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id RAA26970 for ; Thu, 16 Apr 1998 17:15:01 -0400 Received: from head-cfa.harvard.edu(131.142.41.8) by palantir.cv.nrao.edu via smap (V1.3) id sma026961; Thu Apr 16 17:14:32 1998 Received: from xebec by head-cfa (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id RAA15531; Thu, 16 Apr 1998 17:07:11 -0400 Received: by xebec (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id RAA01133; Thu, 16 Apr 1998 17:07:10 -0400 From: arots at xebec.harvard.edu (Arnold Rots) Message-Id: <199804162107.RAA01133 at xebec> Subject: Re: FITS standard In-Reply-To: <199804161933.PAA01740 at urania> from Jonathan McDowell at "Apr 16, 98 03:33:03 pm" To: jcm at urania.harvard.edu (Jonathan McDowell) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 17:07:10 -0400 (EDT) Cc: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL28 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk Jonathan McDowell wrote: > > The new FITS standard draft seems pretty reasonable. I may not have been > paying attention to the Y2K discussion enough, You got that right! ;-) > but I am puzzled by the > statement in 5.4.2.1 that UTC shall be used for the DATE keyword > 'for all data sets created > on earth'. Is it felt that there are practical difficulties in realizing > UTC for computers not on earth? This seems unlikely to the accuracy > required by the DATE keyword; it is also not a frivolous question; > there are enough laptops flying on Shuttle and Mir missions which might > in principle store their data in FITS. I suggest removing the 'on earth' > qualification (or replacing it by 'in the solar system', since I can > see there might be simultaneity issues for interstellar probes...) You took the two easy examples: low earth orbit and outside the solar system. As you probably have guessed, the 'for all data sets created on earth' was added later. It was argued (correctly, I believe) that on the earth's surface, UTC is well defined and useful, but even on a nearby planet like Mars it is not clear that UTC would be the system of choice - TDB might be better. What you see is the text as adopted by the IAU FWG displaying a traditional FITS solution strategy: The convention is specific where we know that it is sensible to do so. In all other situations you are free to follow the same convention if that works well; if not, then at least we didn't paint ourselves into a corner - you can use something that makes sense, as long as you document it in the comment field. - Arnold Rots > > - Jonathan McDowell > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Arnold H. Rots AXAF Science Center Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory tel: +1 617 496 7701 60 Garden Street, MS 81 fax: +1 617 495 7356 Cambridge, MA 02138 arots at head-cfa.harvard.edu USA http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~arots/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu Fri Apr 17 11:28:43 1998 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) id LAA04694 for fitsbits-spinner; Fri, 17 Apr 1998 11:28:10 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (dwells at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id LAA04689 for ; Fri, 17 Apr 1998 11:28:06 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) id LAA06354 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Fri, 17 Apr 1998 11:28:03 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (dwells at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id LAA04679 for ; Fri, 17 Apr 1998 11:26:48 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) id LAA06339; Fri, 17 Apr 1998 11:26:43 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 11:26:43 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199804171526.LAA06339 at fits.cv.nrao.edu> From: Don Wells MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Subject: OBJECT names (was Re: Draft of FITS standard revision 1.2..) Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits In-Reply-To: References: <199804151424.KAA17054 at nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov> X-Mailer: VM 6.35 under Emacs 20.2.1 Sender: owner-fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk Dear NOST Technical Panel (and FITS community), I recommend that some additional text be appended to the single sentence associated with the 'OBJECT Keyword' entry on page 23 in Section 5.4.2.2 (Keywords Describing Observations). This text should recommend that new software implementations which read and write FITS files should support OBJECT strings with lengths of at least 26 characters, and preferably 32 (maybe 36?) characters. The text should also recommend that data systems which originate OBJECT strings (e.g., telescope/instrument data systems) encourage observers to use strings which conform to the recommendations of the Designations Task Group of IAU Commission 5 (Astronomical Data). The text should cite "IAU Recommendations for Nomenclature" . -Don Wells -=-=- Background information on the problem -=-=- 1) Archivists at the Data Centers routinely encounter ambiguous designations, which are due in part to the habit among astronomers of truncating existing designations. It is likely that often designations are truncated in order to fit into the 8-character effective limit to FITS "OBJECT" strings. The decision by the NOST Technical Panel that in Section 5.2.1 (page 16) they should drop the '..previous requirement that reading the data values should not require decoding any more than the first eight characters of a character string value..' will make it possible to eliminate the FITS excuse for truncating designations. 2) Astronomers are using source surveys across many different wavelength regimes so the need for the acronym part of the designation is becoming essential and thus 8 characters is insufficient to uniquely identify sources whose designation involves coordinates. 3) Astronomers who generate surveys and catalogs are now voluntarily submitting their acronyms to the IAU designations registry and thus having their designations screened by the Designations TG for non-conformity before publication. There is a growing recognition that this process eliminates a significant source of ambiguity and confusion in the literature and archives. -=-=- OBJECT length requirements -=-=- The IAU Acronym Registry already contains a registered entry for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey which needs 24 characters, and at least two additional suffix characters should be allowed for ambiguity resolution and slightly longer acronyms. This is the basis for the recommendation of 26 character minimum length for software implementations of OBJECT. Probably it will be prudent to support 32- or maybe even 36-character OBJECT lengths in new datasystems. Examples: 0 1 2 3 123456789012345678901234567890123456 Length ------------------------------------ UCAC 39100201 13 NGC 598:HBW 1282 16 ICRF JHHMMSS.s+DDMMSS 21 FIRST J094044.5+363328 22 (already in the literature) SDSS J125740.44+333827.9 24 (longest current real case) Lynds 1427:JHSMS JHHMMSS.ss+DDMMSS.s 36 (extreme hypothetical case) From owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu Sun Apr 19 21:11:52 1998 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) id VAA13266 for fitsbits-spinner; Sun, 19 Apr 1998 21:11:20 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (dwells at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id VAA13260 for ; Sun, 19 Apr 1998 21:11:17 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) id VAA09154 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Sun, 19 Apr 1998 21:11:14 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (root at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id TAA11984 for ; Fri, 17 Apr 1998 19:15:46 -0400 (EDT) Received: from newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.17]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) with ESMTP id TAA07428 for ; Fri, 17 Apr 1998 19:15:41 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from news at localhost) by newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id TAA22140; Fri, 17 Apr 1998 19:15:40 -0400 To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 19:12:29 -0400 From: William Thompson Message-ID: <3537E1DD.9EEE9547 at gsfc.nasa.gov> Organization: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center -- Greenbelt, Maryland USA Path: newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu!newsgate.duke.edu!nntp-out.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!nntprelay.mathworks.com!newsfeed.nyu.edu!news.columbia.edu!osiris.giss.nasa.gov!newsfeed.gsfc.nasa.gov!usenet References: <199804151424.KAA17054 at nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov> Subject: Re: Draft of FITS standard revision 1.2 available for comment Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Sender: owner-fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk Don Wells wrote: > Dear friends of FITS, > > >>>>> "R.White" == Richard White writes: > R.White> The NASA/Science Office of Standards and Tecnology (NOST) > R.White> Draft Standard 100-1.2, Definition of the Flexible Image > R.White> Transport System (FITS), is now available for review and > R.White> comment. This is a major revision to the previous version > R.White> 1.1 of the FITS standard that was adopted in 1995. .. > I no longer have access to the original message. Where is the draft standard? I went to the NOST page, and couldn't find it. Bill Thompson From owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu Sun Apr 19 21:13:08 1998 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) id VAA13443 for fitsbits-spinner; Sun, 19 Apr 1998 21:13:06 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (dwells at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id VAA13431 for ; Sun, 19 Apr 1998 21:13:03 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) id VAA09159 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Sun, 19 Apr 1998 21:13:00 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (root at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id TAA12101 for ; Fri, 17 Apr 1998 19:30:31 -0400 (EDT) Received: from newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.17]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) with ESMTP id TAA07446 for ; Fri, 17 Apr 1998 19:30:28 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from news at localhost) by newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id TAA22608; Fri, 17 Apr 1998 19:30:27 -0400 To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 19:26:21 -0400 From: William Thompson Message-ID: <3537E51D.AD7C4BF8 at gsfc.nasa.gov> Organization: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center -- Greenbelt, Maryland USA Path: newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu!newsgate.duke.edu!nntprelay.mathworks.com!newsfeed.gte.net!newsfeed.nyu.edu!news.columbia.edu!osiris.giss.nasa.gov!newsfeed.gsfc.nasa.gov!usenet References: <199804161933.PAA01740 at urania> Subject: Re: FITS standard Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Sender: owner-fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk Jonathan McDowell wrote: > The new FITS standard draft seems pretty reasonable. I may not have been > paying attention to the Y2K discussion enough, but I am puzzled by the > statement in 5.4.2.1 that UTC shall be used for the DATE keyword > 'for all data sets created > on earth'. Is it felt that there are practical difficulties in realizing > UTC for computers not on earth? This seems unlikely to the accuracy > required by the DATE keyword; it is also not a frivolous question; > there are enough laptops flying on Shuttle and Mir missions which might > in principle store their data in FITS. I suggest removing the 'on earth' > qualification (or replacing it by 'in the solar system', since I can > see there might be simultaneity issues for interstellar probes...) > > - Jonathan McDowell I'm a little confused by the phrase "accuracy required by the DATE keyword". My understanding of the Y2K proposal is that it does not impose any limitations on the accuracy of date/time values, other than the limitation imposed by the 80 character limit of a header line. That said, I agree with Jonathan that limiting the use of UTC to the Earth is a little odd. I work with the SOHO satellite, which is ~5 light seconds out from the Earth, and we have no trouble relating the times of observations to UTC. Obviously, one needs to be aware that different observers will observe the same phenomena at different times, because of the speed of light, but that's true for Earth-based observers as well at the millisecond level. Perhaps the writers wanted to leave open the possibility that times might be converted to light arrival times at the solar system barycenter, or some other such scheme? Bill Thompson From owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu Mon Apr 20 08:42:14 1998 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) id IAA19613 for fitsbits-spinner; Mon, 20 Apr 1998 08:42:00 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (dwells at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id IAA19608 for ; Mon, 20 Apr 1998 08:41:57 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) id IAA09707 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Mon, 20 Apr 1998 08:41:51 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (root at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id CAA17821 for ; Mon, 20 Apr 1998 02:56:10 -0400 (EDT) Received: from newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.17]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) with ESMTP id CAA09367 for ; Mon, 20 Apr 1998 02:56:07 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from news at localhost) by newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id CAA14336; Mon, 20 Apr 1998 02:56:05 -0400 To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Date: 19 Apr 1998 23:53:23 -0700 From: sla at ucolick.borg (Steve Allen) Message-ID: <6herd3$2da$1 at dei.ucolick.org> Organization: UCO/Lick Observatory Path: newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu!newsgate.duke.edu!nntp-out.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!Supernews60!supernews.com!news.ucsc.edu!not-for-mail References: <199804161933.PAA01740 at urania> <3537E51D.AD7C4BF8 at gsfc.nasa.gov> Subject: Re: FITS standard Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Sender: owner-fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk In article <3537E51D.AD7C4BF8 at gsfc.nasa.gov>, William Thompson wrote: >That said, I agree with Jonathan that limiting the use of UTC to the Earth >is a little odd. I work with the SOHO satellite, which is ~5 light seconds >out from the Earth, and we have no trouble relating the times of >observations to UTC. Unless I am misinterpreting, the entire argument of this posting is relating to the 'DATE-OBS' keyword, whereas the "on earth" clause pertains to the 'DATE ' keyword. >Perhaps the writers wanted to leave open the possibility that times might >be converted to light arrival times at the solar system barycenter, or some >other such scheme? See in the appendix to the Y2K agreement that this is explicitly the case for the 'DATE-OBS' keyword, but not for the 'DATE ' keyword. -- Steve Allen UCO/Lick Observatory Santa Cruz, CA 95064 sla at ucolick.borg Voice: +1 408 459 3046 FAX (don't): +1 408 454 9863 WWW: http://www.ucolick.borg/~sla PGP public keys: see WWW Junk mail is irrelevant -- my return address has been assimilated. From owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu Mon Apr 20 08:43:41 1998 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) id IAA19631 for fitsbits-spinner; Mon, 20 Apr 1998 08:43:39 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (dwells at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id IAA19626 for ; Mon, 20 Apr 1998 08:43:36 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) id IAA09712 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Mon, 20 Apr 1998 08:43:33 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (root at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id DAA17894 for ; Mon, 20 Apr 1998 03:28:26 -0400 (EDT) Received: from newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.17]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) with ESMTP id DAA09411 for ; Mon, 20 Apr 1998 03:28:23 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from news at localhost) by newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id DAA14871; Mon, 20 Apr 1998 03:28:22 -0400 To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Date: 20 Apr 1998 00:28:05 -0700 From: sla at ucolick.borg (Steve Allen) Message-ID: <6hete5$2dt$1 at dei.ucolick.org> Organization: UCO/Lick Observatory Path: newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu!newsgate.duke.edu!nntprelay.mathworks.com!howland.erols.net!Supernews73!Supernews60!supernews.com!news.ucsc.edu!not-for-mail References: <199804161933.PAA01740 at urania> Subject: Re: FITS standard Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Sender: owner-fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk In article <199804161933.PAA01740 at urania>, Jonathan McDowell wrote: >paying attention to the Y2K discussion enough, but I am puzzled by the >statement in 5.4.2.1 that UTC shall be used for the DATE keyword >'for all data sets created >on earth'. Is it felt that there are practical difficulties in realizing >UTC for computers not on earth? This seems unlikely to the accuracy >required by the DATE keyword; it is also not a frivolous question; >there are enough laptops flying on Shuttle and Mir missions which might >in principle store their data in FITS. I suggest removing the 'on earth' >qualification (or replacing it by 'in the solar system', since I can >see there might be simultaneity issues for interstellar probes...) Note that the "on earth" clause under discussion pertains to the 'DATE ' keyword, not the 'DATE-OBS' keyword. The 'DATE ' keyword is the time of creation of the FITS HDU, not the time at which the data were obtained. At the time of the insertion of this clause the Y2K agreement had already left the cabal of Rots, Wells, and myself, passed thru the WGAS vote, and was in the hands of the IAU FWG. Although I wasn't officially party to the evolution of the agreement at this phase, I suspect that my suggestion was responsible for it. My reasoning follows. We usually presume that the equipment which obtains the data has a clock suitable for defining a value of 'DATE-OBS' in whatever is the most convenient time scale. However, these data may not be stored immediately as FITS, but may be transferred to some other computing device which casts them into FITS. It is the responsibility of that machine to create the 'DATE ' keyword, and there need be no requirement that it has a clock which is set to any particular timescale. Furthermore, the 'DATE ' keyword should be rewritten if the original data are reprocessed. On earth the most available timescale may, without much loss of generality, be presumed to be UTC. Note that there is no prohibition against using UTC for data sets created off earth. It was my assertion that it was asking too much to presume that a computer in the data processing center at Farside Lunar Observatory, or Mars Base 1, or of a L5-based amateur who is simply playing with the data, should have a clock which is set to UTC. The clocks of such non-terrestrial, non-data-acquisition computers should be permitted to be set to whatever is the most available timescale. In general, I do not think that likely to be UTC. I do not see any significant compromise in permitting the use of other timescales for 'DATE '. Indeed, my suggestion to members of the IAU FWG indicated that I felt that, without this clause, such non-terrestrial FITS creators would simply curse the Y2K amendment, and then proceed to disregard it. With this clause in place, the Y2K agreement should be able to withstand all solar system use. (Interstellar applications will beg the question of the use of the earth-based Gregorian calendar, but that is a matter for a future FITS working group ;-) -- Steve Allen UCO/Lick Observatory Santa Cruz, CA 95064 sla at ucolick.borg Voice: +1 408 459 3046 FAX (don't): +1 408 454 9863 WWW: http://www.ucolick.borg/~sla PGP public keys: see WWW Junk mail is irrelevant -- my return address has been assimilated. From owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu Mon Apr 20 08:46:55 1998 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) id IAA19660 for fitsbits-spinner; Mon, 20 Apr 1998 08:46:54 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (dwells at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id IAA19655 for ; Mon, 20 Apr 1998 08:46:51 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) id IAA09727 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Mon, 20 Apr 1998 08:46:48 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (root at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id HAA19585 for ; Mon, 20 Apr 1998 07:38:29 -0400 (EDT) Received: from palantir.cv.nrao.edu (tismail at palantir.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.254]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) with ESMTP id HAA09670 for ; Mon, 20 Apr 1998 07:38:26 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from tismail at localhost) by palantir.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id HAA22652 for ; Mon, 20 Apr 1998 07:38:19 -0400 Received: from apollo.le.ac.uk(143.210.16.125) by palantir.cv.nrao.edu via smap (V1.3) id sma022646; Mon Apr 20 07:37:57 1998 Received: from owl.le.ac.uk ([143.210.8.54]) by apollo.le.ac.uk with smtp (Exim 1.90 #1) for fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu id 0yREpA-0001Eq-00; Mon, 20 Apr 1998 12:33:24 +0100 Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 12:30:58 +0100 (BST) From: Clive Page X-Sender: cgp at owl To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Subject: Comment on draft FITS standard revision 1.2 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk The FITS Technical Panel is to be congratulated on drafting a new version of the Standard. I have, however, a few suggestions for clarifications, and one more substantive suggestion at the end. 1. Section 5.3 Units - how to specify physical units in headers? This section implies that FITS header keywords may have physical units, but does not give any indication of how this is to be done. This issue has been debated a number of times, and the pragmatic solution agreed at the last HEADCC meeting is now implemented in FITSIO: the units may be put in square brackets at the start of the comment field of any header line. Since this convention is now beginning to be used widely, I think it ought to be mentioned somewhere. This could be a new section in Appendix B, with suitable references from sections 5.1.2.3 and 5.3. 2. Section 5.3 Units - do columns have to use degrees not radians? When it says "degrees are the required units for celestial coordinate systems" it is not clear to me whether this applies only to header keywords such as those using the WCS, or is intended to be more general than that, e.g. applying also to columns in tables. I note that the sections on units in ASCII and binary tables (8.1.2 and 8.3.2) refer to section 5.3. If the more general interpretation is implied, I would like to disagree with the implication that degrees and not radians are to required for angular quantities in FITS tables. FITS headers were designed to be legible to humans, and in this case degrees may well be a better choice of unit, but the same does apply to columns in tables especially binary tables, which always have to be processed by machines. In my opinion radians are the better choice in such cases: the radian is the SI unit of angle, and it is also the unit used for trig functions in languages such as C and Fortran. Tables containing degrees nearly always have to be converted to radians before use: this uses unnecessary cpu cycles, and may lose accuracy. 3. Section 8.3.2, table 8.6. Iw should be Iw.m to be consistent with section 8.3.4. 4. Section 8.3.2, table 8.6. The specification "integers only" for B/O/Z formats does not make it clear whether these formats may also be used for bit (X) and byte (B) data types. Most reasonable interpretations would assume so, but this would be better made explicit. I think it would also be useful to have a note in the table caption that the ".m" and "Ee" sections of each format are optional. This is specified in detail in section 8.3.4 but you have to read the dense prose rather carefully to see that this is so. 5. Section 8.3.3.1 - Logical When it says "A zero byte indicates an invalid value" it may not be absolutely clear whether this means hexadecimal zero or the character "0", although I think that the former is intended. The qualifier "hexadecimal" is used in similar contexts elsewhere, and it would be clearer to see it used here. 6. Section 8.3.4 Data Display - Integer data I think it should explicitly say that integer, bit, and byte data may use format codes Iw.m etc. This section also leaves unclear what is required for complex data (types C and M), though I assume that a single instance of any of the formats usable for real data will suffice. 7. A Suggestion for support for sexagesimal output FITS tables, especially binary tables, are often used to store lists or catalogues of celestial objects. Large collections of them, such as the CDS, have FITS tables as a principal export format. Such tables invariably include columns of Right Ascension and Declination. Astronomers seem firmly attached to the habit, established in Babylonian times, of showing such coordinates in sexagesimal notation: hours-minutes-seconds for RA, and degrees-arcminutes-arcseconds for DEC. Unfortunately there is no way of specifying that a sexagesimal display format should be used when RA or DEC values are present in FITS tables. I note, however, that the TDISP indexed keyword merely specifies the "recommended" display format for each column, so the introduction of additional TDISP format codes should not cause problems with existing software, which could simply ignore them (as do some current systems when faced with EN or ES formats). I would like to suggest that there should be two additional TDISP format codes, to be added to those in table 8.6., namely: USw.d Unsigned sexagesimal: displays field as hh:mm:ss.s... SSw.d Signed sexagesimal: displays field as Sdd:mm:ss.s... where S is the sign "+" or "-". In both cases the "w" parameter specifies the overall width, "d" specifies the number of digits after the decimal point in the seconds/arcseconds field. For these codes to be valid the TUNIT field would have to specify the units within the FITS column which should be either degrees or radians, and any display program would have to perform the appropriate, if rather trivial, calculations to convert them to hours or degrees and sexagesimal fractions. -- Clive Page, Dept of Physics & Astronomy, University of Leicester. From owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu Tue Apr 21 09:39:50 1998 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) id JAA16295 for fitsbits-spinner; Tue, 21 Apr 1998 09:37:04 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (dwells at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id JAA16290 for ; Tue, 21 Apr 1998 09:36:59 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) id JAA00458 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Tue, 21 Apr 1998 09:36:57 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (root at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id GAA15901 for ; Tue, 21 Apr 1998 06:08:03 -0400 (EDT) Received: from newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.17]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) with ESMTP id GAA11203 for ; Tue, 21 Apr 1998 06:07:58 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from news at localhost) by newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id GAA24965; Tue, 21 Apr 1998 06:07:54 -0400 To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 11:02:28 +0100 From: Peter Bunclark Message-ID: <353C6EB4.6F48 at ast.cam.ac.uk> Organization: Royal Greenwich Observatory Path: newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu!newsgate.duke.edu!nntprelay.mathworks.com!Cabal.CESspool!bofh.vszbr.cz!pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk!lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk!not-for-mail References: <199804161933.PAA01740 at urania> <6hete5$2dt$1 at dei.ucolick.org> Subject: Re: FITS standard Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Sender: owner-fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk I would have thought that terran space-travellers who prefer to stay synched to earth time, perhaps because it suits their circadian rthyms, could stick with UTC, probably running ntp like the rest of us; or at lease, EXO-NTP when it comes out. These people can then quite easily write their FITS tapes (have you ever tried loading a 6250-streamer in zero-G? Me neither) using UTC. On the other hand, the Martian settlers may prefer to divide one Sol into 24 hours etc etc. Now these folk would naturally use MTC (Marsiversal Coordinated Time; the achronym is dyslexic in honour of another terran language that used to be tbe lingua franca...). However, their equipment is always dusty so archiving the data is about as far down the pipeline as it goes. The Jovians don't matter because they're still waiting for their first clear night, and the Europeans just splash about under the ice all day. And night. And back in the real world, Voyager data can be clocked to high-accuracy in UTC, so what's the problem? Peter. Steve Allen wrote: > >see there might be simultaneity issues for interstellar probes...) > From owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu Tue Apr 21 10:33:23 1998 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) id KAA16445 for fitsbits-spinner; Tue, 21 Apr 1998 10:32:09 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (dwells at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id KAA16440 for ; Tue, 21 Apr 1998 10:32:06 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) id KAA00605 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Tue, 21 Apr 1998 10:32:03 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (root at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id KAA16411 for ; Tue, 21 Apr 1998 10:07:05 -0400 (EDT) Received: from palantir.cv.nrao.edu (tismail at palantir.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.254]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) with ESMTP id KAA00569 for ; Tue, 21 Apr 1998 10:07:03 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from tismail at localhost) by palantir.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id KAA10464 for ; Tue, 21 Apr 1998 10:06:59 -0400 Received: from poseidon.ifctr.mi.cnr.it(155.253.16.87) by palantir.cv.nrao.edu via smap (V1.3) id sma010458; Tue Apr 21 10:06:49 1998 Received: from localhost by poseidon.ifctr.mi.cnr.it; (5.65v3.2/1.1.8.2/05Sep96-0731PM) id AA31512; Tue, 21 Apr 1998 16:04:32 +0200 Organization: Istituto di Fisica Cosmica e Tecnologie Relative Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 16:04:31 +0200 (MET DST) From: Lucio Chiappetti To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Subject: Re: FITS standard :-) In-Reply-To: <353C6EB4.6F48 at ast.cam.ac.uk> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk On Tue, 21 Apr 1998, Peter Bunclark wrote: > the Europeans just splash about under the ice all day. And night. :-) actually it's quite sunny down here. And our main concern are Euro's (the new unified currency, you know) [at least this side of the ChUnnel ... :-) ] From owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu Tue Apr 21 15:15:31 1998 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) id PAA18668 for fitsbits-spinner; Tue, 21 Apr 1998 15:15:15 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (dwells at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id PAA18663 for ; Tue, 21 Apr 1998 15:15:12 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) id PAA01232 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Tue, 21 Apr 1998 15:15:09 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (root at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id PAA18650 for ; Tue, 21 Apr 1998 15:14:07 -0400 (EDT) Received: from palantir.cv.nrao.edu (tismail at palantir.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.254]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) with ESMTP id PAA01221 for ; Tue, 21 Apr 1998 15:14:03 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from tismail at localhost) by palantir.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id PAA26958 for ; Tue, 21 Apr 1998 15:14:01 -0400 Received: from silk.gsfc.nasa.gov(128.183.127.210) by palantir.cv.nrao.edu via smap (V1.3) id sma026952; Tue Apr 21 15:13:35 1998 Received: by silk.gsfc.nasa.gov id AA29740; Tue, 21 Apr 1998 15:10:31 -0400 Message-Id: <353CEF26.167E at silk.gsfc.nasa.gov> Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 15:10:30 -0400 From: Tom McGlynn X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (X11; I; OSF1 V4.0 alpha) Mime-Version: 1.0 To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Subject: FITS standard--random groups and other nits. References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; name="fitsstd.mem" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline; filename="fitsstd.mem" Sender: owner-fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk I've put together some comments on the new FITS standard. Most of these are nits which I wouldn't worry about in a less formal document. In general it seemed a very reasonable and useful. The one more serious comment is that the discussion of random groups data is unnecessarily obscure. I get the impression that the writers were trying to 'hide' the existence of this format. Tom McGlynn Section 3: I'd prefer to get rid of all of the "Abbreviation of" and just expand the acronym. If retained acronym would be a better word than abbreviation. ASCII blank -- This definition is misleading or incomplete. Something like "The ASCII character for blank which is represented by a bit pattern with the hexadecimal value 20 (decimal 32). Byte -- Bytes are not strings. Probably something like: In this document bytes are treated octets, a group of eight bits treated as a single entity. Deprecate[d] -- Only the usage within this document should be referenced. Also, I'd recommend not using words like "ought" since we are not in the business of knowing what the right decision is for a user. Something like: Usages not recommended for use in future FITS files are marked as deprecated. Deprecated FITS elements remain valid FITS. FITS logical record -- Either bytes are 8 bits (see above) or not. If we want a more careful word we should probably use the word octet. Floating point -- This can be misinterpreted as written. Maybe something like: A computer representation of a real number -- typically subject to truncation error. [HDU] -- is an acronym that will probably be strange to many users reading this document but is not visible where expected alphabetically. Something like: HDU -- see Header Data Unit might help users. Heap -- Probably shouldn't restrict this usage to binary table extensions since future extensions could use it. IEEE special values -- If this is actually a useful entry it should describe the meaning of all of the values included. I'd personally just get rid of it and reference the appendix where appropriate. Section 4. I find the way Random groups data are discussed here to be a little confusing and I'd suggest that the FITS organization be given as something like: Primary HDU Primary Header Either Primary Data Array or Random Groups Data or nothing 0 or more extension HDUs Header Optional data I have the impression that there's been a lot of work to avoid treating Random Groups data as a special case, but I think it makes the discussion harder to follow. E.g., the way this is structured we have a sentence "The primary HDU and every extension HDU will consist of..." which leaves a reader wondering what happens for a Random Groups structure since it's explicitly excluded from both of those I find figure 4.1 hard to read. I think something that read horizontally would be easier, or the vertical orientation would be easier to read if left justified. I.e., I'd prefer a(1,1,...,1), a(2,1,...1), ..., a(naxis1,1,...), ... a(1,2,...1), ... 4.4.2 It's not clear in this context that the unique type name refers to the extension format, not to extensions within a given file. Maybe: For each approved format a unique identifier is given (see Appendix I). This identifier is used as the value for the XTENSION keyword for any extension using this format. Section 5. 5.4.2.5 I would think some reference to the standardization efforts underway for world coordinate systems would be appropriate. The latest draft should be included in the bibliography. I'd suggest that at least the standard values for the CTYPEn keywords be included in an appendix. Section 6. 6.3 I'd truncate the next to last sentence in the first paragraph as "The full IEEE set of number forms is allowed for FITS Interchange." The next sentence is redundant with the opening paragraph of the chapter. Section 7. I believe the opening paragraph is inappropriate. Many of the modern FITS readers handle random groups or can be modified to do so easily -- especially the large number of readers based on FITSIO. I've personally written IDL and Java FITS readers which handle random groups data. I imagine that AIPS handles random-groups just fine and I would be a little surprised if IRAF cannot. Many FITS readers cannot handle binary tables but I don't see any statement telling people not to use them. A discussion of why random groups is deprecated should be based upon merits of the various formats. It is also incorrect that random groups format can be implemented with standard binary tables as is strongly implied (though I'll grant not quite stated) in this introduction. To support something equivalent to random groups, one needs to have something like the TDIM convention but that is not part of the standard. Section 8. 8.1.5 There may be a tiny broadening of the rules here which I'm not sure is intentional. I had thought that previously an Ew.d field required an E for the beginning of the exponent and a Dw.d required a D. The new rule seems to be that they are completely interchangeable -- which is fine but makes the E and D formats completely redundant with the F format. Appendix A: What is the status of a card like: C2345678=1 I.e., I'm not sure that this is explicitly said to be illegal, but it does not meet the criteria for either a comment card or a value card (needs a space after the =). Appendix F: The image extension should have PCOUNT=0. HTML In the HTML version of the document there seems to be a jump from 5.4.1.1 to 7.1.1.1 and from 7.1.1.9 back to 5.4.1.2. Somehow LaTex2HTML has been confused. Here I'm referring to the links using the next and previous buttons. From owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu Wed Apr 22 09:24:28 1998 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) id JAA12501 for fitsbits-spinner; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 09:24:00 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (dwells at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id JAA12496 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 09:23:57 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) id JAA02201 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 09:23:54 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (root at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id DAA08206 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 03:42:35 -0400 (EDT) Received: from newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.17]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) with ESMTP id DAA01800 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 03:42:32 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from news at localhost) by newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id DAA21292; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 03:42:31 -0400 To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Date: 22 Apr 1998 00:42:11 -0700 From: sla at ucolick.borg (Steve Allen) Message-ID: <6hk70j$7os$1 at dei.ucolick.org> Organization: UCO/Lick Observatory Path: newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu!newsgate.duke.edu!nntprelay.mathworks.com!howland.erols.net!Supernews73!Supernews60!supernews.com!news.ucsc.edu!not-for-mail Subject: Re: Comment on draft FITS standard revision 1.2 Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Sender: owner-fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk Many thanks to the NOST Technical panel for putting this together. Section 5.2.1 Now the minimum string length is no longer required to be 8 characters. Presumably a null string is now a legal possibility, represented AKEYWORD= '' I've written regular expressions which correctly interpret this, but does this need any special mention to distinguish it from a broken attempt to encode an apostrophe? Consider pathological cases akin to AKEYWORD= '' / isn't this funny? 'concatenated'' ''comments' 5.2.4 and 5.2.5 vis a vis 8.1.5 I am aware of the existing cases of FITS ASCII tables where there are spaces embedded within integers and floating point numbers. Does the new prohibition against spaces within real and floating point values imply that there are no known cases of FITS headers with embedded spaces in the keyword values? I know that I have constructed such things while exercising FITS reading code, so it seems dangerous to proclaim that they need not be handled anymore. 5.4.2.2 This is something I wish I'd caught during the wordsmithing of the Y2K text. The intent of the phrase "shall be UTC for dates since 1972 and UT before" is perfectly clear to someone who understands that the UTC epoch began 1972-01-01. To others, however, it would be clearer if the text were more explicit, say "shall be UTC for dates beginning 1972-01-01 and UT before". 5.4.2.5 The definitions of DATAMAX and DATAMIN might be a little clearer if the wording was "maximum valid physical value represented by the array" instead of "in the array". This would serve to emphasize that the DATAMAX/MIN apply to the values after application of BSCALE/BZERO. Alternatively, other language could make this equally clear. 8.3.2 TFORMn values for binary tables will all-too-soon face the need for 64-bit integers. The P format could be pressed into service for this, but it would be better if the question of 64-bit integers were addressed directly. 8.3.4 Data display of binary table data requires the FORTRAN behavior of writing asterisks ***** when the value does not fit the field. Is this constraint really necessary? Can't we permit a broader view of data than this, such as is seen in C printf? Appendix A I can't say thanks enough to those who worked out the BNF. With this it looks like Don Wells might simply write a one or two page RFC proposing the FITS MIME types and incorporate NOST 100-1.2 by reference. For tidiness, page 53-54 splits the definition of decimal_number across the page. These definitions would be best not broken. Appendix E, point 34 there's a typo BIMTABLE instead of BINTABLE -- Steve Allen UCO/Lick Observatory Santa Cruz, CA 95064 sla at ucolick.borg Voice: +1 408 459 3046 FAX (don't): +1 408 454 9863 WWW: http://www.ucolick.borg/~sla PGP public keys: see WWW Junk mail is irrelevant -- my return address has been assimilated. From owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu Wed Apr 22 10:08:32 1998 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) id KAA12688 for fitsbits-spinner; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 10:07:33 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (dwells at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id KAA12683 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 10:07:30 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) id KAA02294 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 10:07:27 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (dwells at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id JAA12595 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 09:54:02 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) id JAA02253; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 09:53:58 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 09:53:58 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199804221353.JAA02253 at fits.cv.nrao.edu> From: Don Wells MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Subject: Re: Comment on draft FITS standard revision 1.2 Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits In-Reply-To: <6hk70j$7os$1 at dei.ucolick.org> References: <6hk70j$7os$1 at dei.ucolick.org> X-Mailer: VM 6.35 under Emacs 20.2.1 Sender: owner-fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk Steve Allen writes: > .. Appendix A > I can't say thanks enough to those who worked out the BNF. With this > it looks like Don Wells might simply write a one or two page RFC > proposing the FITS MIME types and incorporate NOST 100-1.2 by > reference.. I do intend ask IAU-FWG to approve filing for MIME [Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions] content-type codes after NOST 100-1.2 is approved by NOST and by the FITS committees. As you suggest, the application will probably consist of a formal Internet RFC [Request-For-Comments], which will reference our standards document and summarize it tersely. This approach will be required because FITS should get top-level codes (probably 'image/fits', 'application/fits-image', 'application/fits-table' and 'application/fits-group'), and IANA [Internet Assigned Numbers Authority] requires a published RFC to get such codes assigned. -Don Wells [Chair, IAU-FWG] -- Donald C. Wells Associate Scientist dwells at nrao.edu http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~dwells National Radio Astronomy Observatory +1-804-296-0277 520 Edgemont Road, Charlottesville, Virginia 22903-2475 USA From owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu Wed Apr 22 10:51:45 1998 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) id KAA12917 for fitsbits-spinner; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 10:51:37 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (dwells at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id KAA12912 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 10:51:34 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) id KAA02376 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 10:51:32 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (root at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id KAA12895 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 10:50:37 -0400 (EDT) Received: from palantir.cv.nrao.edu (tismail at palantir.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.254]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) with ESMTP id KAA02365 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 10:50:35 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from tismail at localhost) by palantir.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id KAA13045 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 10:50:33 -0400 Received: from rlsaxps.bnsc.rl.ac.uk(130.246.32.128) by palantir.cv.nrao.edu via smap (V1.3) id sma013042; Wed Apr 22 10:50:23 1998 Received: from localhost (ptw at localhost) by rlsaxps.bnsc.rl.ac.uk (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id PAA14541 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 15:47:51 +0100 (BST) X-Authentication-Warning: rlsaxps.bnsc.rl.ac.uk: ptw owned process doing -bs Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 15:47:50 +0100 (BST) From: Patrick Wallace X-Sender: ptw at rlsaxps.bnsc.rl.ac.uk To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Subject: Re: Comment on draft FITS standard revision 1.2 (fwd) Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk Steve Allen writes: > 5.4.2.2 > > This is something I wish I'd caught during the wordsmithing of the Y2K > text. The intent of the phrase > "shall be UTC for dates since 1972 and UT before" is perfectly > clear to someone who understands that the UTC epoch began > 1972-01-01. Not so: UTC started in 1960. See Trans. IAU Reports, XIA, 362-364 or, more accessibly, the table in ftp://maia.usno.navy.mil/ser7/tai-utc.dat 1972 is when they stopped using rate adjustments and introduced leap seconds instead. Patrick Wallace ____________________________________________________________________________ Starlink Project Manager Internet: ptw at star.rl.ac.uk Rutherford Appleton Laboratory Tel: +44-1235-445372 Chilton, Didcot, Oxon OX11 0QX, UK Fax: +44-1235-446667 ____________________________________________________________________________ From owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu Fri Apr 24 21:29:49 1998 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) id VAA10779 for fitsbits-spinner; Fri, 24 Apr 1998 21:28:16 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (dwells at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id VAA10774 for ; Fri, 24 Apr 1998 21:28:13 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) id VAA05340 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Fri, 24 Apr 1998 21:28:09 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (root at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id TAA05315 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 19:51:07 -0400 (EDT) Received: from newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.17]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) with ESMTP id TAA04015 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 19:51:03 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from news at localhost) by newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id TAA06452; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 19:51:02 -0400 To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 17:41:16 -0600 From: James Durbano Message-ID: <353FD19B.71D7 at telusplanet.net> Organization: Big Sky Observatory Path: newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu!newsgate.duke.edu!nntprelay.mathworks.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!206.172.150.11!news1.bellglobal.com!news.agtac.net!news.telusplanet.net!news Reply-To: jdurbano at telusplanet.net Subject: sample CCD images Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Sender: owner-fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk Hello, I was wondering if anyone here could do me a small favour? I would like to take a look at a more-or-less typical CCD image of one of the following planets; Jupiter, Saturn, and/or Uranus. In particular, I was hoping to see if the major sateliites of these planets are also shown on the image. If you can help me out with this I would greatly appreciate it! Please send the images to my e-mail address located below. One last thing, if you can convert the image format from FITS to just about any other graphic format (BMP, GIF, PCX, TIF) that would help me out a lot too! I hope that this isn't asking too much! If you know of a website that has images like this, maybe you can just give me the address instead? Thank-you! James Durbano jdurbano at telusplanet.net From owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu Fri Apr 24 21:31:34 1998 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) id VAA10795 for fitsbits-spinner; Fri, 24 Apr 1998 21:30:20 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (dwells at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id VAA10790 for ; Fri, 24 Apr 1998 21:30:17 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) id VAA05345 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Fri, 24 Apr 1998 21:30:15 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (root at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id WAA21739 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 22:12:40 -0400 (EDT) Received: from newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.17]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) with ESMTP id WAA04103 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 22:12:37 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from news at localhost) by newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id WAA15182; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 22:12:36 -0400 To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 19:12:40 -0700 From: "Christopher E. Spratt" Message-ID: <353FF518.2EC498D at islandnet.com> Organization: Island Net on Vancouver Island B.C. Canada Path: newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu!newsgate.duke.edu!nntprelay.mathworks.com!newshub.northeast.verio.net!news1.best.com!news.islandnet.com!not-for-mail Reply-To: cspratt at islandnet.com Subject: RE: Blinking with Fitsview 2.0 Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Sender: owner-fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk How does one align images to get correct co-ordinated blinking. My images aren't eaxctly aligned. ASTRMETRICA allows me top align two images and then blink. How does one get proper alignment in Fitsview? I'm using a WIN 95 version. From owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu Fri Apr 24 21:35:09 1998 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) id VAA10832 for fitsbits-spinner; Fri, 24 Apr 1998 21:33:55 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (dwells at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id VAA10826 for ; Fri, 24 Apr 1998 21:33:51 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) id VAA05358 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Fri, 24 Apr 1998 21:33:49 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (root at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id FAA05954 for ; Fri, 24 Apr 1998 05:21:59 -0400 (EDT) Received: from palantir.cv.nrao.edu (tismail at palantir.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.254]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) with ESMTP id FAA04679 for ; Fri, 24 Apr 1998 05:21:55 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from tismail at localhost) by palantir.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id FAA11314 for ; Fri, 24 Apr 1998 05:21:51 -0400 Received: from poseidon.ifctr.mi.cnr.it(155.253.16.87) by palantir.cv.nrao.edu via smap (V1.3) id sma011308; Fri Apr 24 05:21:46 1998 Received: from localhost by poseidon.ifctr.mi.cnr.it; (5.65v3.2/1.1.8.2/05Sep96-0731PM) id AA27598; Fri, 24 Apr 1998 11:19:26 +0200 Organization: Istituto di Fisica Cosmica e Tecnologie Relative Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 11:19:26 +0200 (MET DST) From: Lucio Chiappetti Reply-To: Lucio Chiappetti To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Subject: Re: Draft of FITS standard revision 1.2 available for comment In-Reply-To: <199804151443.KAA16043 at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk > All comments should be mailed to the fitsbits exploder at > fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu, or posted to the newsgroup sci.astro.fits. Here they are. First of all I would commend the very useful work done in providing a comprehensive and up to date view of the standard, and in particular I feel that having it on line on the Web, in a very friendly way to consult, is great. [I look forward to the pleasure to tell to somebody, 'look your program is wrong, see http://.....' :-) ] Therefore the comments are minor General I endorse Don Wells comment that the revised standard shall somehow be also published on a journal (probably a supplement series). General deprecated feature shall be hilighted in the text (e.g. boldface, on standalone lines) 1.2 Scope would it be the right time to freeze and discourage use of some of the earlier extensions (random groups and ASCII tables) which are no longer justified ? 4.3.1 just for clarity redefine here a "card image" as an 80-byte card image. 4.3.2 in describing array storage order, a note that this is the storage order used by Fortran would be useful. 4.5 are these special records really necessary ? node53.html : NAXISn Keywords "A value of zero for any of the NAXISn signifies that no data follow the header in the HDU. If NAXIS is equal to 0, there should not be any NAXISn keywords." is this not somewhat redundant and confusing, since already a NAXIS "value of zero signifies that no data follow the header in the HDU." ? http://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/documents/nost_1.2/node56.html http://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/documents/nost_1.2/node57.html the description of the XTENSION Keyword should more properly appear in the second of these pages TELESCOPE and INSTRUME is it worth clarifying that for space missions TELESCOPE is the spacecraft and INSTRUME a combination of eventual optics systems and detector ? 6.3 the text is not clear about the endianness of the IEEE data, while we know this is a critical item. A reference table in appendix about the most common OS usages should be useful. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lucio Chiappetti - IFCTR/CNR - via Bassini 15 - I-20133 Milano (Italy) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fuscim donca de Miragn E tornem a sta scio' in Bregn Che i fachign e i cortesagn Magl' insema no stagn begn Drizza la', compa' Tapogn (Rabisch, II 41, 96-99) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- For more info : http://www.ifctr.mi.cnr.it/~lucio/personal.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu Fri Apr 24 21:43:22 1998 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) id VAA10898 for fitsbits-spinner; Fri, 24 Apr 1998 21:42:08 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (dwells at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id VAA10893 for ; Fri, 24 Apr 1998 21:42:04 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) id VAA05384 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Fri, 24 Apr 1998 21:42:02 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (root at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id MAA07952 for ; Fri, 24 Apr 1998 12:05:54 -0400 (EDT) Received: from palantir.cv.nrao.edu (tismail at palantir.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.254]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) with ESMTP id MAA04990 for ; Fri, 24 Apr 1998 12:05:52 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from tismail at localhost) by palantir.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id MAA04109 for ; Fri, 24 Apr 1998 12:05:50 -0400 Received: from cerere.na.astro.it(143.225.245.12) by palantir.cv.nrao.edu via smap (V1.3) id sma004106; Fri Apr 24 12:05:36 1998 Received: from arthemac by cerere.na.astro.it (5.65v4.0/1.1.8.2/11Oct96-0625PM) id AA15682; Fri, 24 Apr 1998 18:03:01 +0200 X-Sender: kreardon at cerere.na.astro.it Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 18:03:00 +0200 To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu From: Kevin Reardon Subject: Comments on FITS Standard 1.2 Cc: kreardon at cerere.na.astro.it Sender: owner-fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk Dear FITS committee members, included below are my comments and suggested corrections to the proposed FITS standard. Overall, the committee has done an excellent job. Most of these comments are rather trivial in nature and some may be attributable to my misunderstanding of the FITS standards. Section 3 : ---------- Array - "A sequence of data values, arranged in zero or more dimensions" Array value - the definition mentions the linear transformation from array to physical value, but I would not assume such a transformation need not be linear (for example, the logarithmic transformation of photographic density to flux). True, the BSCALE and BZERO keywords can represent only linear transformations, but that doesn't mean other transformations are not possible. DAT - mention that DAT is also know as 4mm tape (especially since this term is used later in the document!). Also, why define DAT but not, for example, Exabyte/8mm tapes? Physical value - again, assumes all transformations are linear Picture element - "A single location within an array" (i.e. eliminate word image) Record - is this the same a logical record? maybe include a "Logical record - see Record" line. Section 5 : ---------- 5.1.1 - Syntax - header card images can also an optional values indicator (see 5.1.2.2). The line would become "Header card images consist of a keyword, and optional value indicator, and optional value, and an optional comment." 5.2.1 - Character String - it seems to be permissible to use two quotes one ofter the other ('') as a character string and one would assume this would indicate a null value for the keyword (and in fact this simplifies the programming of FITS readers and writers). But section 5.1.2.2 seems to indicate the preferred way to encode a null value for a keyword is a null field consisting entirely of spaces (so sometimes character string values would _not_ have two quotes in the value field!). If two sucessive single quotes are indeed acceptable, I think it should be stated clearly in this section. 5.2.2 - Logical Variable - the heading for this section is Logical Variable, but in other points in the document these seems to be referred to as "Logical Constants" (e.g. the definition of the SIMPLE keyword). A standard notation should be assumed. If there is no free format for a logical variable, this should be clearly stated. 5.2.3 - Integer - the definition seems to imply that numbers without leading signs (+ or -) are not acceptable. I would think this would invalidate many FITS headers and is contrary the common assumtion that a number without sign is assumed to be positive (and contrary to the syntax defined in Appendix A). - explicity state the ASCII hex values corresponding to + and -. - To avoid confusion, instead of "Such a representation is..." I would say -"The integer representation described here is ..." 5.2.4 - Real Floating Point Number - "A decimal number consists of an optional sign (+ or -) followed by a sequence of ASCII digits containing a single decimal point ('.')" - defines signs, specifies ASCII digits and constrains number of decimal points. - the correct adjectival form is "fractional" - hence, the "fractional part -of the floating point number". Technically, I guess one should also talk -about the "integral part" of the number as well, but "integer part" -doesn't sound nearly as bad as "fraction part". 5.4.1 - Mandatory Keywords - I would specify _where_ mandatory keywords are required, e.g. "Mandatory keywords are required in every HDU as described..." BITPIX - what is the suggested value of BITPIX to use if there are no data following the header? I think a value of zero should be acceptable in this case, and would be consistent with the value of zero for the NAXIS and NAXISn keywords. NAXIS - what is an "ordinary data array"? Would it better to say the "primary data array"? 5.4.1.2 - Conforming Extensions - it isn't clear, at least from the opening sentence, when these keywords are considered mandatory. I would rephrase the opening to: "When the HDU contains an optional extension, it shall also be mandatory to include the following keywords in the primary header and extension header." 5.4.2.1 ORIGIN - what exactly in meant by "organization"? How can an organization physically create a FITS file? Perhaps a better wording would be "identifying the organizational entity responsible for the creation of the FITS file". DATE-OBS - when referring to the DATE keyword in the first sentence, refer to the appropriate section number as well (see 5.4.2.1). - There is one statement in the second paragraph stating that the DATE-OBS -refers to the start of the observations. The closing paragraph qualifies -this by stating that this assumption shall not be made for observations -made in the 1900's. This is all fine, but these two statements should be -made together in a single paragraph. OBSERVER - I would recommend that it be stated that this keyword can refer to more than one person. I would consider rephrasing the sentence to "identifying the person or persons responsible for acquiring the data associated with the header". OBJECT - accept that some objects have more than one name; switch "the" to "a" -> "a character string giving a name for the object observed". EQUINOX - can refer to both header and data -> "the celestial coordinate system in which positions of either or both the header and/or the data are expressed. CTYPEn - I would state here that "units must follow the prescriptions of section 5.3", since this is the only keyword of this set that actually specifies a unit. CRVLn & CDELTn - remove the "units must follow..." phrase (implied if these values are given in units of CTYPEn). DATAMAX & DATAMIN - a floating point number representation can be identical to an integer number representation, so it would make more since to say these fields "shall always be interpreted as a floating point number." - I would state more clearly that these values no refer to the physical -values, perhaps with a phrasing like "the [minimum|maximum] valid physical -value represented in the array, after transformation to physical values -and exclusive of any special values." (e.g. BLANK, NaN?) Appendix A - ----------- integer_value - here the sign is said to be optional; this needs to be reconciled with section 5.2.3 decimal_number - the syntax here seems to imply the use of the decimal requires the inclusion of the fractional part as well, which is not in agreement with section 5.2.4. I think the desired syntax here would be: [sign][integer part]['.' [fractional_part]] <- i.e. nested brackets Appendix D - ----------- "see: Explanatory Supplement ... OR http://" "Use of GPS time (19 s behind TAI) is deprecated" Does GPS time refer to Global Positioning Satellite time? The explanation of the acronym should be stated. Secondly, why is it deprecated? For many amateurs or smaller observatories this may be the easiest way to get an precise time measurement. Again, the trivial nature of many of these corrections testifies to the excellent job the committee has done in preparing this draft standard. sincerely, kevin reardon Osservatorio Astronomico di Capodimonte kreardon at na.astro.it http://arthemis.na.astro.it/ From owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu Mon Apr 27 09:56:41 1998 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) id JAA07074 for fitsbits-spinner; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 09:55:54 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (dwells at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id JAA07069 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 09:55:50 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) id JAA07588 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 09:55:46 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (root at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id EAA03982 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 04:45:02 -0400 (EDT) Received: from palantir.cv.nrao.edu (tismail at palantir.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.254]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) with ESMTP id EAA07178 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 04:44:59 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from tismail at localhost) by palantir.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id EAA14836 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 04:44:54 -0400 Received: from rlsaxps.bnsc.rl.ac.uk(130.246.32.128) by palantir.cv.nrao.edu via smap (V1.3) id sma014833; Mon Apr 27 04:44:28 1998 Received: from localhost (ptw at localhost) by rlsaxps.bnsc.rl.ac.uk (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id JAA14772 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 09:41:34 +0100 (BST) X-Authentication-Warning: rlsaxps.bnsc.rl.ac.uk: ptw owned process doing -bs Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 09:41:33 +0100 (BST) From: Patrick Wallace X-Sender: ptw at rlsaxps.bnsc.rl.ac.uk To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Subject: Comments on FITS Standard 1.2 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk Kevid Reardon wrote: > "Use of GPS time (19 s behind TAI) is deprecated" > ...why is it deprecated? For many amateurs or smaller observatories > this may be the easiest way to get an precise time measurement. I think the deprecation refers to use of the timescale, not the method of getting the time. Patrick Wallace ____________________________________________________________________________ Starlink Project Manager Internet: ptw at star.rl.ac.uk Rutherford Appleton Laboratory Tel: +44-1235-445372 Chilton, Didcot, Oxon OX11 0QX, UK Fax: +44-1235-446667 ____________________________________________________________________________ From owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu Mon Apr 27 09:56:46 1998 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) id JAA07081 for fitsbits-spinner; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 09:56:12 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (dwells at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id JAA07076 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 09:56:02 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) id JAA07593 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 09:55:59 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (root at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id FAA06517 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 05:51:28 -0400 (EDT) Received: from newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.17]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) with ESMTP id FAA07405 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 05:51:19 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from news at localhost) by newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id FAA32182; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 05:51:16 -0400 To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu Date: 27 Apr 1998 10:42:23 +0100 From: Clive Page Message-ID: <6i1jtv$1nc at owl.le.ac.uk> Organization: University of Leicester, UK Path: newsfeed.cv.nrao.edu!newsgate.duke.edu!nntprelay.mathworks.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!194.72.7.126!btnet-peer!btnet!nntp.news.xara.net!xara.net!server6.netnews.ja.net!server1.netnews.ja.net!warwick!leicester!leicester!not-for-mail References: Subject: Re: Draft of FITS standard revision 1.2 available for comment Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Sender: owner-fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk In article , Lucio Chiappetti wrote: >would it be the right time to freeze and discourage use of some of the earlier >extensions (random groups and ASCII tables) which are no longer justified ? I would support this, except for the fact that ASCII tables seem to be alive and well. For example the CDS at Strasbourg has an unrivalled collection of source catalogues and other tabular data. They hold them in some internal form, but produce FITS tables for export. But these are always ASCII tables. I asked CDS staff last year why they didn't use binary tables (because more efficient, no loss of numerical precision, etc); they vigorously defended the use of ASCII tables. Unfortunately I don't recall now all the reasons they cited - perhaps someone from the CDS reads this group and can enlighten us? -- -- Clive Page, Dept of Physics & Astronomy, University of Leicester. From owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu Mon Apr 27 10:31:55 1998 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) id KAA07248 for fitsbits-spinner; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 10:31:53 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (dwells at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id KAA07242 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 10:31:50 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from dwells at localhost) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) id KAA07665 for fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 10:31:46 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fits.cv.nrao.edu (root at fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]) by kochab.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/CV-2.2) with ESMTP id KAA07211 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 10:26:12 -0400 (EDT) Received: from palantir.cv.nrao.edu (tismail at palantir.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.254]) by fits.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/CV-2.3) with ESMTP id KAA07649 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 10:26:08 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from tismail at localhost) by palantir.cv.nrao.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id KAA00389 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 10:26:05 -0400 Received: from head-cfa.harvard.edu(131.142.41.8) by palantir.cv.nrao.edu via smap (V1.3) id sma000379; Mon Apr 27 10:25:58 1998 Received: from xebec by head-cfa (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id KAA04844; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 10:18:36 -0400 Received: by xebec (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id KAA03229; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 10:18:36 -0400 From: arots at xebec.harvard.edu (Arnold Rots) Message-Id: <199804271418.KAA03229 at xebec> Subject: Re: Comments on FITS Standard 1.2 In-Reply-To: from Patrick Wallace at "Apr 27, 98 09:41:33 am" To: ptw at star.rl.ac.uk (Patrick Wallace) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 10:18:35 -0400 (EDT) Cc: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL28 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-fitsbits at majordomo.cv.nrao.edu Precedence: bulk Patrick Wallace wrote: > Kevid Reardon wrote: > > > "Use of GPS time (19 s behind TAI) is deprecated" > > ...why is it deprecated? For many amateurs or smaller observatories > > this may be the easiest way to get an precise time measurement. > > I think the deprecation refers to use of the timescale, not the method > of getting the time. > > Patrick Wallace That is correct. Most GPS applications and devices, I believe, will convert the GPS time automatically to UTC, but internally the GPS maintains its own time scale, different from everybody else's %-) - Arnold > ________________________________