[fitsbits] REFERENC keyword, etc.

[William Thompson]

Folks:

In our community we've been discussing the need for including information in the 
FITS header about the instrument that produced the data.  The FITS standard 
describes the keyword REFERENC which is described as being where the data are 
published.  We were thinking of using this or a similar keyword to point to the 
instrument paper.  However, the description of REFERENC doesn't appear to be 
compatible with this usage.  Instead, it appears to be oriented towards a data 
rights model where specific observations are considered to belong to a group of 
researchers until the data are published.  That's not generally the case in our 
field.

One keyword that we've recently (tentatively) adopted is INFO_URL to point to a 
website where information about the instrument can be found.  This can include 
copies of the instrument paper(s), user guides, software manuals, observer's 
logs, and the like.  However, one must always consider URLs as ultimately 
ephemeral, and a standard way to point to the published literature, which is 
considered to be more permanent, is highly desired.  I'm curious to know how 
other groups have tackled this problem.

One possible set of keywords which have occurred to me are:

INS_REF Instrument description paper
CAL_REF Instrument calibration paper

The instrument calibration paper tends to come well after the instrument 
description paper.  I haven't discussed these keywords yet with our teams, but 
they seem sensible.  As with REFERENCE, these should either contain the ADS 
bibcode, or the DOI.

I'm interested to know what you think,

Bill Thompson


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

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