[fitsbits] Endian state of multibyte Binary Data in FITS files

[Bill Cotton]

   FITS binary data is big-endian (network standard).  End of story.

-Bill Cotton

Milton Aupperle writes:
 > 
 > First time poster and  a FITS newbie.
 > 
 > I'm working on exporting FITS files from the API of a Astronomical CCD
 > Camera for Mac OS X (PowerPC processors Big Endian).  The binary images
 > are 16 bit Unsigned  grayscale with the proper flags to indicate it is
 > unsigned and how to convert it to. I have it all implemented and all
 > the Mac FITS viewers I've used are happy with the FITS file it creates.
 > 
 > However, I'm somewhat concerned about Endian ness of the Binary data.
 > I've looked through the various FITS specifications that I could find
 > on the Web or in PDF, but I have as yet not found a FITs tag that
 > indicates what endian the data is in.
 > 
 > Can anyone suggest a URL where I can find out about how to indicate or
 > determine what Endian multibyte data is in?
 > 
 > Thanks in Advance..
 > 
 > Milton Aupperle
 > www.outcastsoft.com
 > miltons (at) outcastsoft (dot) com
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