[fitsbits] HEALPix WCS convention - APPROVED

[William Pence]

This is to announce that the regional and IAU FITS committees have recently 
approved a resolution to officially recognize the HEALPix spherical 
projection as part of the FITS World Coordinate System (WCS) standard, in 
addition to the spherical projections that were previously approved in the 
FITS WCS Paper II ("Representations of celestial coordinates in FITS" 
Calabretta, M. R., and Greisen, E. W., Astronomy & Astrophysics, 395, 
1077-1122, 2002).

The conventions for using this projection in FITS files are defined in 
Section 6 of the paper "Mapping on the HEALPix grid" by Mark Calabretta and 
Boud Roukema which is currently available at 
http://www.atnf.csiro.au/~mcalabre.  It is also available on the FITS 
Support Office web site at http://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/fits_wcs.html.

The 4 regional FITS committees voted to approve this HEALPix convention in 
March 2006.  The IAU FITS Working Group then officially approved the 
convention on 26 April 2006 by a vote of 21 in favor and 1 vote to abstain.

William Pence
Chairman, IAU FITS Working Group