[fitsbits] MIME types for FITS

[LC's No-Spam Newsreading account]

On Tue, 24 Dec 2002, Bob Denny wrote:

> it seems that image/fits will do for just about anything. [...]
> Thus, no additional MIME types are needed, and should not be
> created, in my opinion.

This discussion pertains more to the fitsmime mailing list ... and since
I found it in my mailbox, actually I was tempted to reply by e-mail when
I noticed it came from sci.astro.fits gatewayed via fitsbits ...

thus (also for anti-spam sake) I reply here.

I believe that using IMAGE/fits for anything will be misleading.

The word "image" make me think that the file consists (essentially) of a
primary HDU containing a (2d) images which is assumed to be DISPLAYED by
some more-or-less FITS capable (but probably very basic). This is
conforming with the proposed draft RFC where it says that an image/fits
primary HDU shall contain at least one pixel of data !

But this is far from exhausting the widespread usage of FITS for
NON-image data using BINTABLEs !

If one *really* wants to confine to a single MIME type (instead of 2 or
more) that should be application/fits, not image/fits !

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