[daip] FITS images and BITPIX

[Lorant Sjouwerman]

Eric, Bill,

I write out FITS images using FITAB. I want to make thumbnails
in gif or jpg (eg using "FITS2jpeg") - something that shows up
standard in a web browser.

I tried "convert" but it blanks all pixels. It turns out that
the image FITS header has "BITPIX -32", ie negative 32. This
seems to be the upsetting statement, as when I edit it to 32,
"convert" does a better job (I see the image)

I have two main questions :

1) Can I set BITPIX to be positive before writing out

2) Does "FITS2jpeg" handle this better than "convert"
    (Bill's package doesn't seem to be installed at the AOC)

I have hundreds of images so doing it by hand is out of the
question. Also I plan to do this using "system" in AIPS and
thus like to avoid fooling around with "sed -e s/.." etc

Thanks a bunch


Regards,

Loránt Sjouwerman - Scientific Services - lsjouwerman at nrao.edu
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