[fitsbits] Re: leap second alert

[Jonathan McDowell]

My first reaction at this suggestion was to be appalled, but
on reflection it's less obvious that it's a problem. I don't
think most astronomers care about the precise relation between
UTC and the position of the Sun, it's sidereal time that 
we need to get right - so their proposal would amount 
to a different mapping between UTC and GMST. And I think I can
live with the millenial leap hour replacing the annual leap
second. But then there does seem little point to having 
a separate time scale, we should just add a negative leap
increment and set UTC = TAI after some date to decrease the
number of distinct time scales being maintained.
 Perhaps an easier compromise would be to add an integer number
of leap seconds on Jan 1.0 of each year divisible by 10.
We wouldn't have to update our data files so often, and 
a regular date for the adjustment would get around the issue
of increasing frequency as the Earth slows down.
 Or maybe the astronomical community should just volunteer to
take over maintenance of the UTC timescale if the 'time'
community finds it such a burden...
  heretically,
   Jonathan McDowell