[fitsbits] FITS standard for spatial planetary data

[Chiara Marmo]

Good morning everybody,

I am a Research Engineer in a French lab involved in Planetary Sciences (surface imagery and spectro-imagery, in particular).

As part of the Europlanet H2020 project we want to propose standard FITS keywords for planetary surface observations.
We think that using FITS will make easier planetary data processing, as a lot of software and libraries are already available. In addition to that, FITS format is compatible with the standard archiving constraints imposed by PDS (https://pds.nasa.gov/). Today, European missions use different formats and metadata descriptions, making interoperability and reprocessing really difficult.

Starting from Greisen & Calabretta 2002 and Calabretta & Greisen 2002, projected images will be easily described: I will work with people from PDS and PSA for consistent and unique definitions for each planet.
Spectro-imaging and raw data will need probably a bigger effort...

I am writing to this list to ask some questions.

1) A working group on Planetary Data already exists?
2) If not, is someone in this list interested in following or contributing to this discussion?
3) Once a draft of a document is ready, to whom do I submit it? What is the procedure for the IAU evaluates and accepts the new definitions?

Thanks for listening,

Chiara

-- 
Chiara Marmo
Ingénieur de Recherche GEOPS - Paris Sud-11
Bât 509
Tel: +33 (0)1 69 15 49 03