FITS standard

[Jonathan McDowell]

The new FITS standard draft seems pretty reasonable. I may not have been
paying attention to the Y2K discussion enough, but I am puzzled by the
statement in 5.4.2.1 that UTC shall be used for the DATE keyword
'for all data sets created 
on earth'. Is it felt that there are practical difficulties in realizing
UTC for computers not on earth? This seems unlikely to the accuracy
required by the DATE keyword; it is also not a frivolous question;
there are enough laptops flying on Shuttle and Mir missions which might
in principle store their data in FITS. I suggest removing the 'on earth'
qualification (or replacing it by 'in the solar system', since I can
see there might be simultaneity issues for interstellar probes...)

  - Jonathan McDowell