re OBJECT keyword

[Steve Willner]

In article <6lb0jk$ha$1 at dei.ucolick.org>, sla at ucolick.borg (Steve
Allen) writes:
> We cannot envision a user interface which can overcome the human
> factors involved in the setting of OBJECT values so as to conform
> reliably to the IAU Recommendations for Nomenclature (IAU RN).

One of us has misunderstood what is being proposed.  

I don't see any effort to force users to put anything specific in the
OBJECT keyword.  As I understood it, the proposal was merely to
revise the definition to allow more characters to be used if needed.
(Isn't OBJECT now limited to some fairly modest length, or have I
misunderstood the problem?)  Whether one chooses to use those extra
characters to put in a proper designation or something else is up to
the user.

In other words, is there any good reason why OBJECT should not allow
the maximum possible number of characters (69?) in a FITS record?

-- 
Steve Willner            Phone 617-495-7123     swillner at cfa.harvard.edu
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA                 
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