ANNOUNCE: FITS User's Guide version 4.0 Available

[Barry M. Schlesinger]

Version 4.0 of the NASA/ADF FITS Support Office User's Guide to the
Flexible Image Transport System (FITS) is now available, in LaTeX,
PostScript, and gzipped PostScript formats. The choice of gzip rather
than .Z is based on two factors: gzip is not a proprietary format, and
the compressed files are smaller.  Printed copies also can be ordered.

There are several changes from version 3.1.

Discussion of the BINTABLE and IMAGE extensions is now part of the
section on FITS fundamentals.  Discussion of the variable length,
multidimensional, and substring array conventions, which are in the
BINTABLE paper but were not formally endorsed by the IAUFWG, remains
in the chapter on Advanced FITS. 

The discussion of physical blocking is now based on the provisions 
endorsed by the IAU FITS Working Group and is included in the section 
on FITS Fundamentals.

The section on World Coordinates has been revised to reflect the
modifications to the Greisen and Calabretta proposal since version 3.1
of the User's Guide was published and some community discussion about
the proposal.  

Descriptions of many proposed conventions have been added to the
Advanced FITS chapter, among them the checksum proposal, the logical
grouping convention, HEASARC keywords, inheritance, and world
coordinates keywords, especially for use in tables. 

The description of FITS resources now emphasizes network and World
Wide Web sources of information. 

Three sample headers have been added to the Appendix: for an ASCII
table containing a catalog and for binary tables containing infrared
and high energy data. 

The User's Guide is available on-line from
ftp://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/fits/users_guide.*, where * is tex for
the LaTeX version, ps for the PostScript version and ps.gz for the
gzipped PostScript version.  The guide.sty style file must be used to
run the LaTeX version.

Printed copies of the User's Guide can be obtained from the
Coordinated Request and User Support Office (CRUSO), open 8:00 A.M. to 
4:30 P. M. U. S. Eastern Time (GMT -4 until October 26, 1997).

(Electronic mail) request at nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov
(Telephone)       +1-301-286-6695 (has phone mail)

(Postal)
Coordinated Request User Support Office (CRUSO)
Code 633,
National Space Science Data Center
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Maryland 20771, USA

					Barry Schlesinger
                                        FITS Support Office
					GSFC/ADF