Subject: OBJECT keyword redux

From: sla at ucolick.borg (Steve Allen)
Date: 5 Mar 1999 14:16:05 -0800

Last April in response to the call for comments on NOST 100-1.2 Don
Wells proposed that the value of the OBJECT keyword should conform to
the recommendations of the Designations Task Group of IAU Commission
5.

This led to a lively discussion in s.a.f that lasted through June
where two camps emerged.  One camp effectively agreed that the use of
the OBJECT keyword should be tightened for the sake of archival
applications.  The other camp objected that the original loose
definition of the OBJECT keyword had already led to development of
software and observer habits which could not easily be changed to
conform with a tightened definition.

The discussion ended without a clear consensus.

We are now about to deploy the new observing user interface whose
prototype was mentioned last year.  It has the ability to modify an
object name provided by the observer so as to generate a single FITS
card which contains a synopsis of several other important FITS cards.
The prototype used the OBJECT keyword as the location for this
information, principally because this has been the keyword which
is listed by IRAF when it scans a directory full of files.  Our
decision on whether to continue to "abuse" the OBJECT keyword
is imminent.

I would like to re-open this can of worms.  Are there any further
thoughts on the matter of how the OBJECT keyword should be used?  Or
is the issue moot because the NOST panel will be changing the
recommendations for OBJECT?
-- 
Steve Allen          UCO/Lick Observatory       Santa Cruz, CA 95064
sla at ucolick.borg     Voice: +1 831 459 3046     FAX (don't): +1 831 459 5244
WWW: http://www.ucolick.borg/~sla               PGP public keys:  see WWW
Junk mail is irrelevant -- my return address has been assimilated.

---

From: William Pence <pence at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov>
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 1999 13:00:23 -0500

> recommendations for OBJECT?

There has been no significant change to the definition of the OBJECT
keyword in the latest version of the NOST FITS Standard (which
incidentally, is expected to be publicly released within a couple weeks):
"Object Keyword - The Value field shall contain a character string giving a
name for the object observed".  The NOST panel decided it was out of scope
of its charter to introduce new restrictions or rules for the value of the
OBJECT keyword or to define a new reserved keyword such as IAUDESIG,
without the prior general agreement of the FITS community.

-Bill Pence
____________________________________________________________________
Dr. William Pence                          pence at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov
NASA/GSFC Code 662         HEASARC         +1-301-286-4599 (voice)     
Greenbelt MD 20771                         +1-301-286-1684 (fax)