[fitsbits] Is this legal FITS?

[Steve Allen]

On Mon 2017-07-24T15:22:56-0400 Thompson, William T. (GSFC-671.0)[ADNET SYSTEMS INC] hath writ:
> SIMPLE  =                    T / Fits standard
> BITPIX  =                  -32 / number of bits per data pixel
> NAXIS   =                    2 / number of data axes
> NAXIS1  =                  360 / length of data axis 1
> NAXIS2  =                  180 / length of data axis 2
> NAXIS3  =                    0 / length of data axis

I have not seen the above.

This resembles the WCSAXES keyword which may indicate that the WCS has
more dimensions than the data array.
Could that be the explanation for what ds9 is doing?

I can say that long ago it was necessary to write an empty PHDU
by starting with this
SIMPLE  =                    T / FITS standard
BITPIX  =                   16 / Bits per pixel
NAXIS   =                    2 / Number of axes
NAXIS1  =                    0 / Axis length
NAXIS2  =                    0 / Axis length
because there was a widely-used FITS-reading application which would
not tolerate
SIMPLE  =                    T / FITS standard
BITPIX  =                   16 / Bits per pixel
NAXIS   =                    0 / Number of axes

--
Steve Allen                    <sla at ucolick.org>              WGS-84 (GPS)
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