[fitsbits] FITS BoF at ADASS Monday 10-14

[Don Wells]

Dear friends of FITS,

The annual FITS BoF [Birds of a Feather] session will be held ten days
from now, Monday October 14 16:30-18:00 (Eastern US time), at the
Baltimore ADASS meeting. The full BoF schedule is appended below.

We will review the state of FITS, and will discuss various issues of
current interest.  Persons who want to speak or who want to propose
subjects for discussion should send requests to me by email.  

I have already received one such request from Eric Greisen, who wants
to review *spectroscopic* World Coordinate System [WCS] issues,
i.e. the WCS-III proposed standard.  I know from various private email
messages that there is interest in discussing other issues, especially
other pending proposed standards, but I have not yet received specific
requests for time.

				 -=-

It gives me great pleasure to point out that, for the first time in
nearly a decade, the basic WCS and celestial coordinate conventions
will *not* be a subject for the FITS BoF!  This is because the WCS-I
and -II papers were submitted to the WGAS FITS Committee [WFC] earlier
this year.  WFC approved the proposals in July; the 15-0 vote was
announced on <fitsbits> 2002-07-16.  The proposals were then submitted
to the Japanese and European FITS Committees.  The Japanese result,
12-0, was reported 2002-08-09.  The European result, 12-0, was
reported one week ago, 2002-09-27.  In summary, the regional FITS
Committees have approved WCS-I and -II *without*dissent* and without
modification.  The proposals will now be considered by the IAU FITS
Working Group for formal adoption as additions to the FITS standard.

Regards,
Don Wells [Chair, IAU FITS Working Group]

				 -=-

		 Current schedule for accepted BoFs:

Monday, Oct. 14, BoF Session 1: 4:30pm-6:00pm

   1: "FITS", hosted by Don Wells
   2: "Reusable Software Components", hosted by Frank Tanner
   3: "Education and Public Outreach", hosted by Steve McDonald
   
Monday, Oct. 14, BoF Session 2: 7:30pm-9:00pm

   4: "Python in Astronomy", hosted by Perry Greenfield
   5: "Astronomical Websites", hosted by Tony Ferro
   6: "Teaching Scientific Computing with N-body Simulations", hosted by
       Vicki Johnson and Peter Teuben

-- 
  Donald C. Wells      Scientist - GBT Project        dwells at nrao.edu
                    http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~dwells
  National Radio Astronomy Observatory                +1-434-296-0277
  520 Edgemont Road,   Charlottesville, Virginia       22903-2475 USA
       (DCW is often in Green Bank, West Virginia, at +1-304-456-2146)