Sources of FITS Information

[Barry M. Schlesinger]

Archive-name: astronomy/fits/info-sources
Last-modified: 1997/09/26


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		Sources of FITS Information 

Preface 	

This material on sources of Flexible Image Transport System (FITS)
information is posted and updated periodically by the FITS Support
Office at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC).  It discusses
where general FITS information, including some answers to frequently
asked questions, can be found, and provides sources for detailed
information on FITS software and documentation. 

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FITS Support Office

The FITS Support Office maintains a library of FITS information
accessible via http://ssdoo.gsfc.nasa.gov/astro/fits/fits_home.html or
ftp://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/fits/.  The material available includes 

o	"Definition of FITS", a codification of FITS for the 
	NASA/Science Office of Standards and Technology (NOST),
	available in LaTeX, uncompressed PostScript, compressed 
	PostScript and (often) ASCII text

o	"A User's Guide to FITS", published by the FITS Support Office, 
	in LaTeX, uncompressed PostScript, and gzipped PostScript 

o	Revisions to version 1.0 of the "Definition of FITS" covering the
	specification of units, which were incorporated 
	into version 1.1 (text)

o	A current list of the extension type (structure) names
	registered with the International Astronomical Union FITS
	Working Group (IAUFWG) (text)

o	Rules for physical blocking on various media adopted by
	the IAUFWG (text)  

o	The proposal under consideration by the IAUFWG for a format
        providing for a four-digit year and both date and time for
        DATExxxx keyword values (text) 

In the same directory as fits_home.html and accessible from it 
are four files that contain an update and expansion of the
information that used to be in the FITS Basics and Information:

o	fits_intro.html: An overview of FITS

o	documents.html: A discussion of FITS documents  

o	software.html: A discussion of software packages that
	support FITS, including  FITS->image converters for
        various platforms, and a list of sample FITS files

o	info_sources.html: A discussion of on-line FITS resources

Links are provided to many of the documents, software, and network
locations listed. This FITS Support Office on-line material is
continually revised to reflect current FITS developments. 

There is also a hypertext version of the List of Registered Extensions. 

Links from the Web page and subdirectories of the ftp directory contain
	
o	Software developed by the FITS Support Office.  

o	Error test files: primary HDUs useful for testing the ability
	of software designed to read FITS files to cope with files that 
	have errors or are non-standard.  These files should be 
	downloaded in binary form.

Printed copies of the material in the FITS directory can be obtained
from the Coordinated Request and User Support Office (CRUSO):  

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

(Electronic mail) request at nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov

(Telephone)  +1-301-286-6695 8:00 A. M. - 4:30 P.M. U. S. Eastern Time
(-0500 from the last Sunday in October through the first Saturday in
April; -0400 the remainder of the year) 
	When no one is available, messages can be left on voice mail. 
(FAX) +1-301-286-1635

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National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO)

A FITS Archive can be found at URL http://fits.cv.nrao.edu/ or 
at ftp://fits.cv.nrao.edu/fits, located at NRAO.  This machine supports a
WAIS server named nrao-fits which has an index of all of the
FITS-related text files in the archive; the file nrao-fits.src is
available at 
ftp://fits.cv.nrao.edu/fits/wais-sources/nrao-fits.src.  

Some of the more noteworthy materials in this archive are 

o	Text of any detailed proposals currently being discussed by 
	the FITS committees

o	Drafts of other formally proposed additions to the FITS
        standard and of potential future proposals 

o	A collection of documents on World Coordinate Systems, 
	including the current draft proposal

o	Conventions specific to particular projects or disciplines

o 	Software for various environments and Usenet postings about
	code 

o	Sample data and special test files designed to measure the
        ability of a FITS reader to handle a wide variety of FITS files

o	Archives of traffic on FITS-related newsgroups and exploders

A separate NRAO site, http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~bcotton/fitsview.html,
provides information on the FITSview family of software packages for
display of FITS images on Microsoft Windows 3.1 and Windows 95, Apple
Macintosh, and Unix/X-Windows, with links to the software. It also links to
a number of sources of astronomical FITS images.                                                 

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HEASARC

The NASA/Goddard High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research
Center (HEASARC) Web server at 
http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/heasarc/fits.html and the anonymous
ftp access through ftp://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/fits_info/ provide FITS
material.  HEASARC has developed the FITSIO package of software routines
for easily reading and writing FITS files, with FORTRAN and C versions
available, portable to a wide variety of machines.  There are also the
FTOOLS collection of software tools, the VERIFITS FITS conformance
verifier, and the fv FITS file viewer and editor. HEASARC software is
available directly through
http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/heasarc/tech_res_software.html or
ftp://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/fits_info/software/ . 

The HEASARC server also provides information from the HEASARC FITS
Working Group, (HFWG) the internal legislative body on FITS-related
matters within the Office of Guest Investigator Programs (OGIP) at
NASA/GSFC, at 
http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/heasarc/ofwg/ofwg_intro.html or at
ftp://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/fits_info/ in the directories ofwg_minutes
and ofwg_recomm.  The HFWG has developed a number of FITS conventions
that are more specific than the requirements of the FITS standards.
Proposed conventions are publicized to the FITS community as a whole,
with the goal of collaborative development of a set of conventions
that will be accepted throughout the community as well as within
OGIP/HEASARC. 

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Direct questions about this posting to 
				Barry M. Schlesinger
				Coordinator,
				FITS Support Office

Electronic mail: fits at nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov
Telephone:       +1-301-286-2899		

The FITS Support Office is operated under the guidance of the
NASA/GSFC Astrophysics Data Facility.