[fitsbits] WCS Paper III approved

[William Pence]

Announcement of IAU-FWG Approval of the FITS WCS Paper III

I am pleased to announce that the 22 members of the IAU FITS Working Group
have unanimously approved the current draft of the paper "Representations of
spectral coordinates in FITS" by Greisen, Calabretta, Valdes, and Allen.
This is the 3rd in a series of papers on representing world coordinate
systems in FITS files; these papers serve to promote the standardization and
interoperability of FITS data.

The latest version of this paper is available from the lead author's web
site at http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/~egreisen/ or from the astroph service at
http://lanl.arxiv.org/archive/astro-ph (abstract number 0507293).  While the
current version of this paper is considered to be quite mature, it still may
undergo further revisions in response to the recent suggestions from the
IAU-FWG or from the journal editors before it is accepted for publication
and before it is officially incorporated into the rules and recommendations
of the FITS Standard.  In particular, several of the IAU-FWG members have
offered some suggestions for improving the current draft.  I will post these
suggestions on the 'fitswcs' mail list later today.

The 'fitswcs' mail list will be used to post future announcements about
updates to this paper, and it should preferably also be used for submitting
any other comments or suggestions regarding this paper.  Refer to
http://listmgr.cv.nrao.edu/mailman/listinfo/fitswcs for information on
subscribing to this list or to view the archive of previous postings.

Bill Pence
Chairman, IAU FITS Working Group
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____________________________________________________________________
Dr. William Pence                          William.D.Pence at nasa.gov
NASA/GSFC Code 662         HEASARC         +1-301-286-4599 (voice)
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