[fitsbits] INSTRUME and TELESCOP

[Tom Kuiper]

Hi, Bob!

Bob Garwood wrote:
> That's all an internal view of the system.  SDFITS doesn't care.   
> Standard telescope names would be useful, but they aren't defined.  And 
> again, SDFITS isn't really a standard - just a dream of a standard 
> that's never been really realized.
>   
TELESCOP is a core keyword:

*TELESCOP*
    A string value giving the telescope name. 

It doesn't seem ambiguous to me.  Standardizing the possible values of 
TELESCOP seems like a good idea.

BACKEND is a shared keyword:

*BACKEND*
    A string giving the name of the back end device. 

AIPS++ SDFITS doesn't seem to know about INSTRUME. Personally, I prefer 
backend anyway.

I'm struggling with this because I'm stuck in the middle between our 
Spanish station where the astronomers use CLASS and our Australian 
station where they use ASAP.  We are now setting up a new telescope at 
Goldstone with a very powerful CASPER-based backend. How do we archive 
data in a common format?

Let me ask you, since NRAO has adopted ASAP as part of CASA, how are you 
going to deal with peculiarities of ASAP which exist for historical 
reasons? (Like 'set_instrument'!)

Best regards

Tom

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