[fitsbits] Dataset identifications.

Thierry Forveille forveill at cfht.hawaii.edu
Wed Mar 10 19:14:40 EST 2004


Thomas McGlynn writes:
 > One that comes to mind is whether use of this
 > keyword should be recommended only for the primary header of a FITS
 > file.  If not then a file may not be associated with a unique dataset
 > id.
 > 
Is that a problem, or actually a desirable characteristic? I could imagine
a single FITS file containing data from several origins in different 
extensions (e.g. M31 images from IRAS, ROSAT, and the CfA CO(1-0) survey)
where different DS_IDENT would be apropriate. Or should such a merged
dataset be given a new DS_IDENT and forget about the original ones? At
first sight at least, retaining the original pedigree sounds like
a good thing.




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