[fitsbits] updates to the FITS standard document

[Lucio Chiappetti]

Dear members of the FITS community,
                                    this message is to inform you of 
recent activity within the IAU FITS WG and related issues in the near 
future, concerning updates to the FITS Standard Document.

1) one activity is a due act, i.e. the inclusion in the FITS Standard
    Document of the Time WCS (already approved 1 year ago with the
    incorporation of the Rots et al. paper finally published as A&A 574,
    A36 (2015)

    A new chapter of the FITS Standard Document will summarize the main
    points of the paper (as done in the past for the rest of WCS).

    This will be subject to a procedural vote inside the IAU FITS WG
    within the next 2 weeks

2) a task force within the IAU FITS WG has been considering the inclusion
    of a number of registered conventions as part of the standard.

    For 6-7 of them we have (or nearly have) a text to be included in
    the FITS Standard Document. According to the rules, this will be
    subject to a Public Review Period here on FITSBITS, with the goal
    to have the IAUFWG vote (on each convention) during July.

    Considering that the conventions are in use since several years
    (so their operablity and interoperability is surely proven), and
    were discussed when registering the conventions themselves, to
    speed up things the Public Review Period will be reduced to 3 weeks.

    Most likely the tiled image and tiled table compression conventions
    will be announced first (and soon) for a Public Review Period, because
    they are a bit more complex than the rest (an entire new chapter of
    the FITS Standard Document will be dedicated to them) and deserve
    dedicated attention.

    Soon after, the other conventions will be announced for a Public Review
    Period, most likely in parallel.

3) Another technical team has been considering a *new* convention for long
    keyword name and extended character set. Since this is a new proposal,
    it will be most likely announced for a Public Review Period later and
    separately.

    However the various Public Review Periods will largely overlap, because
    the goal is to have the subsequent vote concluded before the next
    IAU General Assembly, when the IAU FITS WG (and its parent Commission
    5) will be formally dissolved, to resurrect somehow as Commission B,2
    and part of the Data Representation WG.

So those of you interested are warned that some of your time and attention 
will be required during the next weeks.

Lucio Chiappetti, Chair of the IAU FITS WG

-- 
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Lucio Chiappetti - INAF/IASF - via Bassini 15 - I-20133 Milano (Italy)
For more info : http://www.iasf-milano.inaf.it/~lucio/personal.html
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