Subject: Annual report for IAU FITS Working Group 1991

From: pgrosbol at eso.org
Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1992 11:13:02 GMT

The following report was submitted to BAAS for publication:

        IAU FITS Working Group Annual Report for 1991
                       Preben Grosbol
                European Southern Observatory

This report covers main events and activities concerning the FITS
standard for the period March 1991 to March 1992.

1. General
----------

1.1 IAU FITS Working Group 
--------------------------
  The FITS Working Group met during a meeting of Commission 5 at the
IAU General Assembly XXI in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Due to the
distant location, only a limited number of members participated.  Main
activities have included the acceptance of the Floating Point
Agreement and discussions on new proposals.  The Group is chaired by
P.  Grosbol (ESO) with D. Wells (NRAO) as vice-chairman.

1.2 NASA FITS Support Office
----------------------------
  The office was given very substantial help to the FITS community by
providing documentation and clarification on FITS issues.  Beside its
direct support activities, it has initiated the creation of a standard
document for the Implementation of FITS (current version NOST 100-0.3b).
This document gives a concise definition of FITS consistent with the 
IAU recommendations.  The office is coordinated by B. Schlesinger.

1.3 Network News Group
----------------------
   During the fall of 1991, D. Wells made a network News group for
discussions of FITS matters. It was combined with an e-mail exploder
because the USEnet News facility is not available at all sites.  A
vote on the creation of an official News group 'sci.astro.fits'
was made in the spring of 1992.

This News group has already been of great value by broadening the
discussion of the FITS standard. It gives a natural forum for
reviewing new proposals and suggestions. Further, it provides a
convenient tool to obtain clarifications or solutions on FITS
problems.

2. Proposals and Agreements
---------------------------
  Three proposal for extensions to the FITS standard were submitted
for Binary Tables, Images and Blocking. The Binary Table extension
provides higher efficiency by using binary storage of data instead of
only ASCII representation as in the current Table format.  Further, it
allows table entries to be arrays, opening the possibility to
transport spectra and images as single entries.

The Image extension enables matrices of different size or data type to
be saved in the same FITS file. It corresponds closely to basic FITS
and is useful for auxiliary data such as PSF's or quality flags.

The Blocking convention specifies the rules for recording FITS files
on different media e.g. 8mm Exabyte, QIC and DDS/DAT cartridges. It
also gives general recommendation for FITS on magnetic disks.

3. Availability
---------------
  Information on the FITS standard can be obtained via E-mail from
the following Internet addresses:

  B. Schlesinger, NASA : bschlesinger at nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov
  P. Grosbol, ESO      : pgrosbol at eso.org
  D. Wells, NRAO       : dwells at nrao.edu

Documentation, general information and test data files are available
on anonymous FTP to nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov [128.183.36.23],
ftphost.hq.eso.org [134.171.8.4] and fits.cx.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8].