[fitsbits] Stokes axis convention

[William Thompson]

The original WCS paper included a way of expressing Stokes parameters as one of 
the dimensions of a data cube, and this has since been incorporated into version 
3.0 of the FITS standard.  I was wondering to what extent this capability has 
been taken up by the community.  Is it widely used?

I ask because I was looking at a rough draft of a document describing data 
formatting for a solar virtual observatory being put together in Europe, and one 
part of the document called for putting each Stokes parameter in a separate HDU. 
  Based on the current FITS document, that would seem contrary to common and 
accepted practice in the broader astronomical community, and I would like to 
confirm that.

Bill Thompson

-- 
William Thompson
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Code 671
Greenbelt, MD  20771
USA

301-286-2040
William.T.Thompson at nasa.gov