A question about the standard

[Clive Page]

In article <lh200t7yu0.fsf at sapc47.estec.esa.nl>,
Giuseppe Vacanti <gvacanti at astro.estec.esa.nl> wrote:
>I have a question about the FITS standard that I haven't been able to
>address by reading NOST 100-1.1.
>
[snip]
>
>Now my question is: is it legal to have (before the END key word) a
>card image filled with blanks? 
>

My version of document NOST 100-1.1 "Definition of the Flexible Image
Transport System (FITS)" issued by GSFC says in section 5.2.2.4 entitled 
"Commentary Keywords", near the top of page 19:
 
"Keyword field is blank: Columns 1-8 contain ASCII blanks.  Columns
 9-80 contain any ASCII text.  Any number of card images with blank
 keywords may appear in a header"

So if columns 1-8 are blank, the rest of the card image may contain
anything, including all blanks, and is treated as a comment line.  This
seems clear enough to me.   Lots of our FITS data files contain blank lines
and fverify seems to think they are ok, and I have never had problems with
them (up to now).   But I'd welcome more authoritative comments...


-- 
-- 
Clive Page,
Dept of Physics & Astronomy,        
University of Leicester.