[fitsbits] Question(s) regarding development of proprietary FITS manipulation software. . .

[Thierry Forveille]

Michael Williams a écrit :
> Basically I asked if these astronomers images were literally live  
> images (perhaps of the stars, or nieces and nephews), or if they were  
> simply arbitrary graphical representations of data that had no  
> reference in reality.  
Please read what has actually been written, by others as well as
by myself, rather than your preconceptions: the images are not
"graphical representations of data", they are the data themselves.
Whether those data have any reference in reality or not is a
philosophical issue, and irrelevant for all practical display
purposes that I can see.

> Also, given the fact that, as you said,  
> reverse transformation isn't always possible, why in the world does  
> it matter if the user can perform image manipulations of any type?  I  
> mean, if there is no consistent way to produce an image, then why do  
> we care?
> 
Well, that's very much a question for you, which has been
repeatedly asked on the forum and which you never answered:
why do YOU care about FITS images, and what do YOU want to
do with them?

We've all tried to explain what they actually are, but without
any productive reaction on your side I've personally reached
a point where the only useful suggestion I can have is that
you attend/read an Astronomy 101/Philosophy of Science 101
class/book.