Subject: Where is there a FITs ftp site?

From: Steve Welch <sjw at solitaire.cv.nrao.edu>
Date: 9 May 1995 14:17:25 GMT

Hi,

I am new to News, and to fits also, so . . . 

I am looking for a method to easily open a FITs file so that it can be saved
into another format.  I think that there is an ftp site dedicated ti fits 
somewhere, but I can't remember where. Does anyone know of this, or have any
suggestions, before I set about reinventing a wheel?

Regards

Steve

sjw at mssl.ucl.ac.uk

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From: Peter Barvoets <zardoz at albany.net>
Date: 9 May 1995 18:39:04 GMT

Steve,

Try the following:

http://fits.cv.nrao.edu/
Fits archive at NRAO

or
http://astrosun.tn.cornell.edu/FITS.html
This has a fits faq etc.

I have a question perhaps you can help me with.  When I try to get a fits 
image from a perticular site, the "image" comes as a text of odd 
characters, it doesn't give me the opportunity to download it directly to 
disk. I use Netscape for this and usually, when retrieving an image, 
netscape allows me to download the image to disk where I can then view it 
using l-view or whatever. since netscape prints out the file for a fits 
image as if it were text, I cannot view the image using the fitsviewer I 
have.  

If the image is indeed text, netscape will only display the code.

Are fits images text based? and if so, how do I download to view?

Thanks for any help on this

-PB

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From: Peter Barvoets <zardoz at albany.net>
Date: 9 May 1995 18:40:14 GMT

Steve,

Try the following:

http://fits.cv.nrao.edu/
Fits archive at NRAO

or

-PB

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From: thompson at orpheus.nascom.nasa.gov (William Thompson)
Date: 10 May 1995 18:42:29 GMT

>Are fits images text based? and if so, how do I download to view?

If the HTTP server does not specify otherwise, a WWW browser such as Mosaic or
Netscape will try to guess what kind of file it is.  FITS files start out with
an ASCII header followed by binary data.  The computer will see that the first
part of the file is in ASCII and will assume that the rest of the file is ASCII
as well.

There are several ways to take care of this.  One way is to modify the way that
the computer guesses the file type.  I understand that in Unix this involves
modifying the file /etc/magic, but am unfamiliar with the details.

Another way to take care of this is for the server to associate MIME data types
with filenames.  It appears that it becoming standard to use "image/x-fits" for
FITS files.  Personally, I believe that this is only appropriate for files that
actually contain images, i.e.

	SIMPLE = "T"
	NAXIS = 2
	No extensions
	No groups

For more general kinds of FITS files, I believe that "application/x-fits" is a
better MIME type to use.  The latter is more in line with other scientific data
formats which are not restricted to 2D images, such as "application/x-hdf" for
HDF files and "application/x-netcdf" for NetCDF files.

My own HTTP server is configured to serve any files with the extension ".fts"
as "image/x-fits" and any files with the extensions ".fits" or ".fit" as
"application/x-fits".

Bill Thompson

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From: bschlesinger at nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov (Barry M. Schlesinger)
Date: 11 May 1995 13:44 EDT

In article <3onthl$7oj at mssly3.mssl.ucl.ac.uk>, Steve Welch <sjw> writes...
>suggestions, before I set about reinventing a wheel?

After seeing a number of responses, I am happy to see this message 
finally arrived here.  An additional source of FITS information is 
at ftp://nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov/fits/ (or 
ftp://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/fits/ if using a Mosaic Web browser.)
The file basics_info.txt has specific discussion of a number of 
different software packages, including those that can convert FITS 
files that are images into other formats.

				Barry Schlesinger
				FITS Support Office
				NSSDC/ADF