[fitsbits] start of Public Comment Period on compressed FITS image and tables

[Lucio Chiappetti]

On Fri, 26 Jun 2015, van Nieuwenhoven, Richard wrote:

> A minor concern is that it would help if there was some kind of index or 
> other way to have jump points to the separate hdu's.

Not sure if hierarchical grouping does that (to be examined in the 
convention working team).  While I proposed an INDEX extension (could just 
be a normal BINTABLE with a reserved EXTNAMe and layout) in the context of 
the other technical team (new features for FITS).

As I said many times, I am not a keen supported of large MEFs with 
arbitrarily long number of HDUs, except for particular purposes (I call it 
a FAR, FITS ARchive, like a tar). And a FAR would benefit of an INDEX.

But this is premature to be discussed now and here.