Question about a fits header

[Steve Allen]

In article <Dx825M.3vy at midway.uchicago.edu>,
Alanna Spehr <alspehr at mhd3.uchicago.edu> wrote:
>Can somebody tell me what the 52917 is, and how I can change it
>to something more useful? Or, is there someplace that would
>document things like this?

Not having an answer to this question, I pose another:

Documenting the semantics and syntax of all FITS keywords would
require a community-wide effort involving every site which has written
a FITS file.  Let us assume that it be possible to gather FITS keyword
characteristics (semantics, format, units, defining authority, dates
of use, etc.)  into a database which be globally updatable and
queryable via the WWW.

How valuable might such a database be?
--
Steve Allen          UCO/Lick Observatory       Santa Cruz, CA 95064
sla at ucolick.org      Voice: +1 408 459 3046     FAX: +1 408 454 9863
WWW: http://www.ucolick.org/~sla                PGP public keys:  see WWW