[fitsbits] start of Public Comment Period on WCS Timing Paper

[William Pence]

On 04/22/2014 04:43 AM, Lucio Chiappetti wrote:
> This is just a reminder that the Public Comment Period will remain open
> for less than a week from now.
...
>  http://iau-commission5.wikispaces.com/WG+FITS#curact

First, I'd encourage anyone who needs to deal with timing information in 
FITS files to read this important paper on Time coordinates.  If nothing 
else, it provides some interesting background on the complexities of 
unambiguously recording when an event actually happened.

I just have 2 minor comments on the current 1.0 version of the paper:

1.  In section 4.0, when referring to the "Green Bank convention", one 
could add a citation to the FITS Registry of conventions, at 
http://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/fits_registry.html, which provides some 
background about the origin of the convention.

2.  Section 4.1.2 should prescribe what action a FITS reader should take 
if a header contains both the MJDREF keyword and the MJDREFI and MJDREFF 
pair of keywords (and same for the JDREF, JDREFI and JDREFF keywords). 
This is clearly not recommended, but it could happen.  Should the 
MJDREFI and MJDREFF keywords take precedence over MJDREF in that case?

-Bill

-- 
____________________________________________________________________
Dr. William Pence    Astrophysicist     William.Pence at nasa.gov
NASA/GSFC Code 662     [Emeritus]       +1-301-286-4599 (voice)
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