Representation of Coordinates in FITS This anonymous ftp area (fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8] : /fits/documents/wcs) has been set aside for documents concerning the representation of the coordinates of the pixels in FITS images. My two early AIPS Memos (27 and 46) have been recovered and recast into modern LaTeX (from TeX -1 or so). In so doing, I redrew the figures for both memos in PostScript, using AIPS to draw those for Memo 46 and "hand" drawing those for Memo 27. The files are called aips27.ps (of modest size) and aips46.ps (about 600 kbyte in uncompressed form). Therefore, it is stored only in the Unix compressed form aips46.ps.Z. Try "zcat | lpr -Pxxx" to avoid on-disk decompression; else "lpr -s -Pxxx " to avoid complaints about too-large files. Another early document is found in the files wcs88.tex and wcs88.ps. This document is a draft by Hanisch and Wells concerning thew meeting held in Charlottesville in 1988 on "world coordinates". These earlier papers are intended to be superceded entirely by a new document found (partly) in a file called wcs.tex.date.Z (the figures are separate files not included in wcs.tex). The real working document for a FITS paper authored by myself and Mark Calabretta is called wcs.none.ps.Z (no figures, prints quickly), and wcs.all.ps and wcs.all.ps.Z (all figures). The figures are drawn with PostScript programs which have all been verified with our printers and ghostview. However, we have found several models of "postscript" printer which simply fail on the documents and others which work, but are exceedingly slow. Hence, the quicker-to-print version. This is an evolving document, representing our opinion of the best ways to represent coordinates. To track earlier versions, I have left the .tex copies of versions from June 1993, August 1993, September 1994, and November 1994. The June 1993 version was widely advertised and presented at the AAS meeting in Berkeley. The August version was advertised and contained the results of some discussions at Berkeley, primarily the reintroduction of the CDELTn keywords. The September 1994 version was discussed at the ADASS meeting in Baltimore. Don Wells has asked me to include files representing my poster papers at the June 1993 AAS meeting and September 1994 ADASS meetings. I have added these as Talk93.tex.Z, Talk93.ps.Z, Talk94.tex.Z, Talk94.tex.Z, Poster93.ps, and Poster94.ps. The 93 poster may have to be broken into separate pages for some printers. The page breaks are obvious (a full line of % signs). Almost all of the files have been compressed using the standard Unix compress command to save space and to speed network transmission. If you find that you cannot read the papers via ftp, or cannot get them to print, you may obtain paper copies of all 3 are by contacting Ernest Allen National Radio Astronomy Observatory 520 Edgemont Road Charlottesville, VA 22903-2475 e-mail: eallen@nrao.edu phone: 804-296-0209 fax: 804-296-0328 Please let us know your comments (well-considered and temperate only), so that we may develop a consensus which will allow the final wcs.ps to become a new FITS standard. Thanks, Eric W. Greisen, Scientist. National Radio Astronomy Observatory egreisen@nrao.edu 804-296-0348