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From: Arnold Rots <arots at head-cfa.harvard.edu>
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Subject: Re: wcs.ps
In-Reply-To: <199903312117.QAA25164 at primate.cv.nrao.edu> from Eric Greisen at "Mar 31, 99 04:17:52 pm"
To: egreisen at valen.cv.nrao.edu (Eric Greisen)
Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1999 10:10:09 -0500 (EST)
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Eric,

A few more comments on the WCS paper.

Units:
When we introduced the ADU for Chandra/AXAF files, last year, it was
decided to use the string "adu", in lower case.  Since that has been
written into a lot of software already, it would be helpful - to us,
at least - if you could also define that string as lower case.

I noticed that your list was missing the unit that is dear to many HEA
types' hearts: the "Crab".  Even though it's listed in the Chandra
FITS guide, I'm not sure I'd really want to argue for its inclusion in
your list. ;-)

Coordinates in binary tables:
I think it would be good to split the BINARY vector column in Table 7
also into new and old, where old is the convention that HEASARC
adopted a number of years ago and that got incorporated into the RXTE
archive: jCTYPn, jCUNIn, jCRVLn, jCRPXn, jCDLTn.  I know, that makes
it hard to fit into one text column, but ...
My recollection was that the old Pixel List increment was TCDLTn, not
TCDELn.
I would suggest changing the Vector increment keyword, in view of
these older forms, to jCDLns, rather than jCDEns.
In general, I would argue for accepting CDELTjs, jCDLns, and TCDLns as
plain synonyms for, respectively, CDj_js, jjCDns, and TCn_ns (rather
than deprecating some of them), just to have uniform rules for all of
them (I hope I'm not opening a can of worms here); with the
restriction that one cannot mix increments with a matrix: increments
are ignored when any CD matrix element is present.

I was trying not to get confused by the indices in Tables 1 and 7; but
shouldn't, in the latter, TCRPns be TCRPks?  It took me a while, but I
can see the rationale for the trio PVj_ms, jPm_ns, and TPm_ns.  It is
unfortunate that, in an effort to keep the column number at the end,
this clashes internally.  Maybe one should consider jPn_ms and TPn_ms;
I have my doubts whether these will ever become popular.

  - Arnold

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Arnold H. Rots                                         AXAF Science Center
Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory                tel:  +1 617 496 7701
60 Garden Street, MS 81                              fax:  +1 617 495 7356
Cambridge, MA 02138                             arots at head-cfa.harvard.edu
USA                                     http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~arots/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

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To: Eric Greisen <egreisen at valen.cv.nrao.edu>
Cc: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu
Subject: Re: wcs.ps 
In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 31 Mar 1999 16:17:52 -0500 (EST) .
Date: Thu, 01 Apr 1999 17:01:42 +0200
From: Francois Ochsenbein <francois at vizir.u-strasbg.fr>
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Dear Eric,

Thank you for your fast reaction and update of the wcs paper.
It's really converging, just a few more comments:

> > 
> > 1. Compared to the IAU Style Manual:
> >    In table3: 
> >    - the radian (symbol rad) is missing
>
>     Angular units are a problem.  The original FITS papers specified
>that degrees would be used and they have been widely used for angles
>projected onto images.  Coordinate descriptions purporting to obey the
>proposed conventions of Paper II (ccs.ps) will be required to use
>degrees throughout.  Nonetheless, wcs.ps should include 'rad' and
>other standard angular measures for other uses, such as in tables.
>Angles without specified units will be assumed to be in degrees.
        -----------------------
==> Agreed, that's the important point: any unit can be used for angle, 
    the _default_ being degrees (important for angles in the HDU,
    not really for tabular data)

> >    - the Ohm should be written with a capitalized O,
> >          to be consistent with its origin (physicist's name)
> >          and uppercase Greek symbol.
>
>      Agreed - but neither your www site nor OGIP used the upper case
>so I think we should stay lower.  IAU does not capitalize any of the
>named units (e.g.newton) when spelling out the unit in case that
>matters to anyone.
==> Well, it looks like I'm also inconsistent... I'll change "ohm" to 
    "Ohm" in our definitions (no column with such unit was found up to now
    in astronomical tables anyway). 
    About case, the spelled units use only lowercase --- but the
    symbol units derived from some physicist's name are always 
    capitalized ('N' for newton, 'A' for ampere, 'J' for Joule,
    'Wb' for weber, 'Jy' for Jansky, etc...)

> >    In table 4: 
> >    - the symbol of the year is the single-letter a (not yr)
>
>      Yes.  However, your www site also allows 'yr', so I have added
>the IAU-standard 'a'
==> Thank you -- the "a preferred" sentence is probably not required,
    mentionning its presence in the IAU style manual should be enough
    (yr is much more frequently used in the literature...)

> >    - the sun-based units (solar mass at least) is missing
>
>      Special mass units in general were missing and I also added all
>the solar ones on your www page.
>
> >    - the letter 'b' alone is the symbol of the barn (cross-section)
>
>       The IAU does not include this unit and your www page also uses
>'barn' so I think we leave this one.
==> The IAU style manual includes the 'b' in its Table 7 (Non-SI units
    and symbols whose continued use is deprecated).
    But I agree that "barn" is better, to distinguish from "beam"

> >    - for the Angstroem: should be capitalized for the same reasons
> >      as Ohm above -- and should or not an 'e' appended after the
> >      'o' to reflect the original accentuation of the o ?
>
>       The IAU does not include the unit.  I suggest angstrom because
>that is what OGIP has used and your www page does not allow for it.
==> Like the barn, the symbol is listed in Table 7 of IAU style manual.
    I could add also add it in our list.

> > 2. The usage of the ** for exponentiation is not really a good
> >    idea -- it only makes sense for fortran programmers.
> >    Why not a single-letter symbol like the caret (^) most
> >    likely familiar to many more persons ? 
>
>       Actually the up arrow is also tied to mark-up languages such as
>TeX which, like Fortran, will become unfamiliar to people in time.
>There is no reason not to allow both and I agree that the up arrow
>looks more like "raising to a power".  It will be harder to typeset
>with TeX (e.g. \char'136 or inside a \verb) than simple text.
==> I agree, the best solution is to allow both... In latex, just write
    \^{ } -- a bit ugly, I agree, but this works...

> > 3. The usage of the blank is not a good idea either, even though
> >    it looks more like the printed text, it complicates its
> >    acquisition from simple-minded software (e.g. Perl) without
> >    better readability  -- "count /s" doesn't look better than
> >    "count/s" 
>
>      You know - I rejected this when I first read it and have since
>come around to think that you are right.  I have rewritten the text to
>allow but strongly discourage blanks.
==> There is just a 'switch?' at the end of this paragraph which
    is mot likely to be removed.

> > 4. Some usual abbreviations like "ct" for count, or "ph" for
> >    photon, could be accepted .
> >    And some "miscellaneous" units could be useful as well like
> >    "beam" or "bit"
>
>     I added 'ct', 'bit', and 'beam'.  Your list does not include 'ph'
>so I left 'photon' as the only one of those.
==> I will add 'ph' (frequently found in the literature anyway) 

> > 5. Finally, the usage of the trigonometric functions applied to
> >    units raises the question of the units of their argument and
> >    therefore the inconsistency with the inverse function, the degree
> >    being adopted instead of the radian. My personal suggestion
> >    would be to drop completely the trigonometric functions applied
> >    to non-dimensionless units -- I never found such expression in
> >    the literature, and this would be bad physics anyway !
>
>Again I am going from rejecting your idea to accepting it.  There are
>numerous physical quantities that vary e.g wrt log(wavelength) or
>cos(elevation).  In the first case, the values do depend on whether it
>is log(nm) or log(m).  But the second case, cos requires an argument
>in whatever units that function requires and produces a unitless
>result that is independent of whatever units we thought of the
>elevation in.  Therefore I have dropped all trigonometric functions
>but have left log, ln, etc.
==> Thank you !

> > Are these conventions about units in FITS definitive ?
> > The documentation of astronomical catalogues available from
> > the data centres (ADC, CDS, ...) describe over 60,000 columns;
> > roughly 50% of these columns are unitless, and therefore about
> > 30,000 columns have attached units carefully standardized
> > to allow automatic conversions. (description at 
> > http://vizier.u-strasbg.fr/doc/catstd-3.2.htx ) 
> > I would hesitate to change these anyway... but would appreciate
> > any comment / argumentation !
>
>    I have adopted all of the suggestions at this site, but one.
>Write m2 does not instinctively mean m^2 or m**2 when I read it and so
>I prefer the nomenclature of OGIP for exponents even though it does
>require more characters.  At some point human readability must enter
>this discussion.
==> In our system, we'll also adopt the ^ as a possible way (presently
    we don't require any symbol for an integer power)

>    Many thanks for your close reading of this document and your
>suggestions.  I look forward to hearing from you again...

There are a few additions/suppressions of the dagger indicating the
possible addition of multiple prefixes in Table 4:
- deg: suppress the dagger ?
- add the dagger for  a yr  solMass  barn  

Thank you again,
Francois
================================================================================
Francois Ochsenbein       ------       Observatoire Astronomique de Strasbourg
   11, rue de l'Universite F-67000 STRASBOURG       Phone: +33-(0)3 88 150 755
Email: francois at simbad.u-strasbg.fr   (France)        Fax: +33-(0)3 88 150 740
================================================================================

From owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu  Thu Apr  1 13:13:39 1999
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Subject: Re: wcs.ps
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	<199904011510.KAA18249 at xebec.harvard.edu>
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Arnold Rots writes:
 > Units:
 > When we introduced the ADU for Chandra/AXAF files, last year, it was
 > decided to use the string "adu", in lower case.  Since that has been
 > written into a lot of software already, it would be helpful - to us,
 > at least - if you could also define that string as lower case.

      okay
 > 
 > I noticed that your list was missing the unit that is dear to many HEA
 > types' hearts: the "Crab".  Even though it's listed in the Chandra
 > FITS guide, I'm not sure I'd really want to argue for its inclusion in
 > your list. ;-)

     if the Crab is as well defined as the Solar units, we could add
it.  What is the definition?

 > 
 > 
 > Coordinates in binary tables:
 > I think it would be good to split the BINARY vector column in Table 7
 > also into new and old, where old is the convention that HEASARC
 > adopted a number of years ago and that got incorporated into the RXTE
 > archive: jCTYPn, jCUNIn, jCRVLn, jCRPXn, jCDLTn.  I know, that makes
 > it hard to fit into one text column, but ...

      sigh...

 > My recollection was that the old Pixel List increment was TCDLTn, not
 > TCDELn.

      the old column has been added and the spellings fixed

 > I would suggest changing the Vector increment keyword, in view of
 > these older forms, to jCDLns, rather than jCDEns.

       CDELT is not an allowed "new" word.  I moved jCDLns to the new
old column and put in the old spelling

 > In general, I would argue for accepting CDELTjs, jCDLns, and TCDLns as
 > plain synonyms for, respectively, CDj_js, jjCDns, and TCn_ns (rather
 > than deprecating some of them), just to have uniform rules for all of
 > them (I hope I'm not opening a can of worms here); with the
 > restriction that one cannot mix increments with a matrix: increments
 > are ignored when any CD matrix element is present.

      There has been a fight about this.  Earlier drafts of the full
combined paper recommended writing both forms of the words for new as
well as old readers.  But there was a large outburst from a variety of
people.  The new Paper II will recommend writing either the new form
ONLY or the old form ONLY.  Combined versions will be forbidden.  I am
sympathetic to this view in hindsight since the subject is already
complicated without mixing "Latin" with a modern tongue.

 > 
 > 
 > I was trying not to get confused by the indices in Tables 1 and 7; but
 > shouldn't, in the latter, TCRPns be TCRPks?  

       A subtle (and correct) point.  How many people will read this
paper that closely?

It took me a while, but I
 > can see the rationale for the trio PVj_ms, jPm_ns, and TPm_ns.  It is
 > unfortunate that, in an effort to keep the column number at the end,
 > this clashes internally.  Maybe one should consider jPn_ms and TPn_ms;

      I agree and have switched them.

 > I have my doubts whether these will ever become popular.

      They may not be "popular" but coordinate projections will
require them and people will have little choice...

     I have not  yet copied a new wcs.ps to the www address because I
now need to consider Francois' latest ideas.  A new one will be
announced when ready.

Thanks for your comments and close reading,

Eric

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***** GENERAL REMARKS *****:

1.  Does anyone require angstrom as a synonym to Angstrom?

2.  Would people read over Table 4 to see if they agree with which
    units should be allowed prefixes and which not.  Also, please
    look to see if a prefix might turn one unit into another - a
    gotcha we have to avoid.

3.  The latest draft is now in place at
        ftp://ftp.cv.nrao.edu/NRAO-staff/egreisen/wcs.ps

Thanks to all

Eric

Francois Ochsenbein writes:
 > 
 > It's really converging, just a few more comments:

    Yes - remarkable really.  Thanks for your help here.

 > 
 > > > 
 > > > 1. Compared to the IAU Style Manual:
 > > >    In table3: 
 > > >    - the radian (symbol rad) is missing
 > >
 > >     Angular units are a problem.  The original FITS papers specified
 > >that degrees would be used and they have been widely used for angles
 > >projected onto images.  Coordinate descriptions purporting to obey the
 > >proposed conventions of Paper II (ccs.ps) will be required to use
 > >degrees throughout.  Nonetheless, wcs.ps should include 'rad' and
 > >other standard angular measures for other uses, such as in tables.
 > >Angles without specified units will be assumed to be in degrees.
 >         -----------------------
 > ==> Agreed, that's the important point: any unit can be used for angle, 
 >     the _default_ being degrees (important for angles in the HDU,
 >     not really for tabular data)

     Actually tables can have whole images in them or fragments of
projected imagery, so the conventions of Paper II will be important in
those cases.  Of course, what really matters is that coordinates be
labeled and labeled correctly.

 > 
 > > >    - the Ohm should be written with a capitalized O,
 > > >          to be consistent with its origin (physicist's name)
 > > >          and uppercase Greek symbol.
 > >
 > >      Agreed - but neither your www site nor OGIP used the upper case
 > >so I think we should stay lower.  IAU does not capitalize any of the
 > >named units (e.g.newton) when spelling out the unit in case that
 > >matters to anyone.
 > ==> Well, it looks like I'm also inconsistent... I'll change "ohm" to 
 >     "Ohm" in our definitions (no column with such unit was found up to now
 >     in astronomical tables anyway). 
 >     About case, the spelled units use only lowercase --- but the
 >     symbol units derived from some physicist's name are always 
 >     capitalized ('N' for newton, 'A' for ampere, 'J' for Joule,
 >     'Wb' for weber, 'Jy' for Jansky, etc...)

     This is not worth much discussion - as you say it is not present
in much of our data.  'Ohm' it is.

 > 
 > > >    In table 4: 
 > > >    - the symbol of the year is the single-letter a (not yr)
 > >
 > >      Yes.  However, your www site also allows 'yr', so I have added
 > >the IAU-standard 'a'
 > ==> Thank you -- the "a preferred" sentence is probably not required,
 >     mentioning its presence in the IAU style manual should be enough
 >     (yr is much more frequently used in the literature...)

     Changed to "a is IAU-style"

 > 
 > > >    - the sun-based units (solar mass at least) is missing
 > >
 > >      Special mass units in general were missing and I also added all
 > >the solar ones on your www page.
 > >
 > > >    - the letter 'b' alone is the symbol of the barn (cross-section)
 > >
 > >       The IAU does not include this unit and your www page also uses
 > >'barn' so I think we leave this one.
 > ==> The IAU style manual includes the 'b' in its Table 7 (Non-SI units
 >     and symbols whose continued use is deprecated).
 >     But I agree that "barn" is better, to distinguish from "beam"

     I like barn - b is unfamiliar to we non-X-ray folk and the b of
IAU documents is being deprecated by them.

 > 
 > > >    - for the Angstroem: should be capitalized for the same reasons
 > > >      as Ohm above -- and should or not an 'e' appended after the
 > > >      'o' to reflect the original accentuation of the o ?
 > >
 > >       The IAU does not include the unit.  I suggest angstrom because
 > >that is what OGIP has used and your www page does not allow for it.
 > ==> Like the barn, the symbol is listed in Table 7 of IAU style manual.
 >     I could add also add it in our list.

     Okay - "Angstrom".  Does anyone require angstrom as a synonym?
I note that my spell checker wants Angstrom also!

 > 
 > > > 2. The usage of the ** for exponentiation is not really a good
 > > >    idea -- it only makes sense for fortran programmers.
 > > >    Why not a single-letter symbol like the caret (^) most
 > > >    likely familiar to many more persons ? 
 > >
 > >       Actually the up arrow is also tied to mark-up languages such as
 > >TeX which, like Fortran, will become unfamiliar to people in time.
 > >There is no reason not to allow both and I agree that the up arrow
 > >looks more like "raising to a power".  It will be harder to typeset
 > >with TeX (e.g. \char'136 or inside a \verb) than simple text.
 > ==> I agree, the best solution is to allow both... In latex, just write
 >     \^{ } -- a bit ugly, I agree, but this works...
 > 
 > > > 3. The usage of the blank is not a good idea either, even though
 > > >    it looks more like the printed text, it complicates its
 > > >    acquisition from simple-minded software (e.g. Perl) without
 > > >    better readability  -- "count /s" doesn't look better than
 > > >    "count/s" 
 > >
 > >      You know - I rejected this when I first read it and have since
 > >come around to think that you are right.  I have rewritten the text to
 > >allow but strongly discourage blanks.
 > ==> There is just a 'switch?' at the end of this paragraph which
 >     is mot likely to be removed.

     I don't know where that came from - it is gone now.

 > 
 > > > 4. Some usual abbreviations like "ct" for count, or "ph" for
 > > >    photon, could be accepted .
 > > >    And some "miscellaneous" units could be useful as well like
 > > >    "beam" or "bit"
 > >
 > >     I added 'ct', 'bit', and 'beam'.  Your list does not include 'ph'
 > >so I left 'photon' as the only one of those.
 > ==> I will add 'ph' (frequently found in the literature anyway) 

     I added ph as a synonym.

 > 
 > > > 5. Finally, the usage of the trigonometric functions applied to
 > > >    units raises the question of the units of their argument and
 > > >    therefore the inconsistency with the inverse function, the degree
 > > >    being adopted instead of the radian. My personal suggestion
 > > >    would be to drop completely the trigonometric functions applied
 > > >    to non-dimensionless units -- I never found such expression in
 > > >    the literature, and this would be bad physics anyway !
 > >
 > >Again I am going from rejecting your idea to accepting it.  There are
 > >numerous physical quantities that vary e.g wrt log(wavelength) or
 > >cos(elevation).  In the first case, the values do depend on whether it
 > >is log(nm) or log(m).  But the second case, cos requires an argument
 > >in whatever units that function requires and produces a unitless
 > >result that is independent of whatever units we thought of the
 > >elevation in.  Therefore I have dropped all trigonometric functions
 > >but have left log, ln, etc.
 > ==> Thank you !

Mark Calabretta points out that all functions require unitless
arguments.  Thus log(Hz) really means log(x/1Hz).  A sentence to say
this has been added.  That would make trigonometric functions
possible, but I will only put them back is there is an outcry...

 > 
 > > > Are these conventions about units in FITS definitive ?
 > > > The documentation of astronomical catalogues available from
 > > > the data centres (ADC, CDS, ...) describe over 60,000 columns;
 > > > roughly 50% of these columns are unitless, and therefore about
 > > > 30,000 columns have attached units carefully standardized
 > > > to allow automatic conversions. (description at 
 > > > http://vizier.u-strasbg.fr/doc/catstd-3.2.htx ) 
 > > > I would hesitate to change these anyway... but would appreciate
 > > > any comment / argumentation !
 > >
 > >    I have adopted all of the suggestions at this site, but one.
 > >Write m2 does not instinctively mean m^2 or m**2 when I read it and so
 > >I prefer the nomenclature of OGIP for exponents even though it does
 > >require more characters.  At some point human readability must enter
 > >this discussion.
 > ==> In our system, we'll also adopt the ^ as a possible way (presently
 >     we don't require any symbol for an integer power)

      Thanks you!

 > 
 > >    Many thanks for your close reading of this document and your
 > >suggestions.  I look forward to hearing from you again...
 > 
 > There are a few additions/suppressions of the dagger indicating the
 > possible addition of multiple prefixes in Table 4:
 > - deg: suppress the dagger ?
 > - add the dagger for  a yr  solMass  barn  

    Done.  The whole issue of which to put daggers on and which not is
confusing to me.  I hope people read and check this matter closely.

Again, many thanks,

Eric

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Subject: Re: wcs.ps
In-Reply-To: <199904011712.MAA26281 at primate.cv.nrao.edu> from Eric Greisen at "Apr 1, 99 12:12:21 pm"
To: egreisen at valen.cv.nrao.edu (Eric Greisen)
Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1999 16:48:32 -0500 (EST)
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Eric Greisen wrote:
> Arnold Rots writes:
>  > Units:
>  > ...
>  > I noticed that your list was missing the unit that is dear to many HEA
>  > types' hearts: the "Crab".  Even though it's listed in the Chandra
>  > FITS guide, I'm not sure I'd really want to argue for its inclusion in
>  > your list. ;-)
> 
>      if the Crab is as well defined as the Solar units, we could add
> it.  What is the definition?

It's more like a relative flux density unit, with a particular
spectral distribution.  Think of it as radio astronomers expressing
their flux densities at all frequencies in Cas-A units.  I don't think
you want to get into this ;-)

> 
>  > 
>  > 
>  > Coordinates in binary tables:

Table 7 still contains TCDELn instead of TCDLTn.

> 
>  > I would suggest changing the Vector increment keyword, in view of
>  > these older forms, to jCDLns, rather than jCDEns.
> 
>        CDELT is not an allowed "new" word.  I moved jCDLns to the new
> old column and put in the old spelling
> 
>  > In general, I would argue for accepting CDELTjs, jCDLns, and TCDLns as
>  > plain synonyms for, respectively, CDj_js, jjCDns, and TCn_ns (rather
>  > than deprecating some of them), just to have uniform rules for all of
>  > them (I hope I'm not opening a can of worms here); with the
>  > restriction that one cannot mix increments with a matrix: increments
>  > are ignored when any CD matrix element is present.
> 
>       There has been a fight about this.  Earlier drafts of the full
> combined paper recommended writing both forms of the words for new as
> well as old readers.  But there was a large outburst from a variety of
> people.  The new Paper II will recommend writing either the new form
> ONLY or the old form ONLY.  Combined versions will be forbidden.  I am
> sympathetic to this view in hindsight since the subject is already
> complicated without mixing "Latin" with a modern tongue.
> 

Sigh...
I notice, though, that, de facto, you don't adhere to this creed,
either, using words like e.g., prefix, suffix, etc. ...
Which seems to indicate that it can quite convenient to have the
ability to throw an occasional Latin word in ;-)

>  > 
>  > 

Thanks for all the great work,

  - Arnold

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Arnold H. Rots                                         AXAF Science Center
Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory                tel:  +1 617 496 7701
60 Garden Street, MS 81                              fax:  +1 617 495 7356
Cambridge, MA 02138                             arots at head-cfa.harvard.edu
USA                                     http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~arots/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

From owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu  Fri Apr  2 09:04:50 1999
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On Wed, 31 Mar 1999, Francois Ochsenbein wrote:

>    - the Ohm sould be written with a capitalized O,
>          to be consistent with its origin (physicist's name)

I disagree with this (trivial) point. I think that it is the normal
practice of publishers in the english-speaking world *not* to
capitalize the names of units, even those derived from proper names,
such as "newton", "ohm", "joule", "jansky", "ampre", "ngstrm", etc.
This may be a recommendation of the various international unions - I
am not sure - but it is certainly advocated by, for example, the Royal
Society (London).

This follows normal english practice, in which proper names are
capitalized, but not words derived from proper names, such as
"sandwich", "boycott", etc.

However, tastes differ; and there are some circumstances in which it
is appropriate to capitalize the name of a unit, such as at the
beginning of a sentence.  So software should be tolerant of variant
capitalization (i.e., it should be case-insensitive).

Tim Pearson
Astronomy Dept 105-24, Caltech, Pasadena, California 91125, USA
Internet:    tjp at astro.caltech.edu

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Date: Fri, 2 Apr 1999 09:50:32 +0200 (MET DST)
From: Lucio Chiappetti <lucio at ifctr.mi.cnr.it>
To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu
Subject: Crab et al., a warning Re: wcs.ps
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On Thu, 1 Apr 1999, Eric Greisen wrote:

> Arnold Rots writes:
>  > I noticed that your list was missing the unit that is dear to many HEA
>  > types' hearts: the "Crab".  

>      if the Crab is as well defined as the Solar units, we could add
> it.  What is the definition?

About the definition of "1 Crab" I guess it could be good to agree a standard
definition. I believe everybody has one's own variant ...

In principle it should be a "flux" unit (ANY flux, from erg/cm2/s to ph/cm2/s
or even cts/s for a particular mission instrument) which results from the
comparison of the integrated flux (in a "given" energy band, see below) of
a Crab-like spectrum, i.e. the spectrum of the synchrotron component in the
Crab nebula   dN/dE = 9.8 * E**(-2.1) * absorption(NH=3.10E21).

At least that's what I use. Little variations in norm, spectral index and NH
are possible according to your favourite reference.

However what is not well defined is the band in which the integral is taken.
In principle you can integrate the above spectrum in ANY band, and compare the
flux of your source in the same band to the Crab-like spectrum.

In practice the definition was born in 2-10 (or 2-6) keV X-ray astronomy, and
it would be of less use and ease in other bands ... of course a, say, 1 mCrab
source in 2-10 keV would'nt be a 1 mCrab in 100-300 keV if the spectrum is
steeper or flatter than 2.1 !

                           BUT .. BUT ... BUT ...

One moment. Are we talking here of standardization of unit indication in
generic FITS files (tables) or just of WCS ?
And does not WCS apply "primarily" (or "originally") to IMAGES and
"secondarily" (or "more recently") to SPECTRA ?

I would expect it would be very difficult that the "spatial" axes of an image,
or the "dispersion" axis of a spectrum, would be measured in Crab units (or
in Ohm, if that matters).
So aren't we discussing about "the sex of angels" ?

                            AND MORE BUT'S ...

Even if we would be discussing standardization of units in generic tables, I
reiterate my provocation, is it really worth while to go in extreme detail ?
For what are essentially "plot labels" ?
I'd expect humans (astronomers) be able to read a column heading and know what
it is (and convert to their favourite customary units) anyhow, while software
will just copy and use labels as they are, as "semantic-less" strings.
Do we really expect to have an all-encompassing universal routine library
which will convert any unit to any unit ?

I heard a saying "build a system than any fool can use, and only a fool will
want to use it". But it could also be reversed "build a standard that is too
clever, and nobody will be clever enough to want to use it".

I'm thinking of a recent discussion about a largish database private to a
smallish consortium (less than 10 institutes), of course to me it was obvious
to say FITS had to be used for interchange and not ASCII ... but it was
pointed to me that the programming competences of the "mean quadratic
astronomer" were quite below that mark ...

And if he/she will have difficulty in using age-old consolidated good old
plain FITS, is it likely it will adhere, or even check, a "marginal"
convention ?

Even when major agencies (funded also by my taxes) involved in major missions
produce and distribute tools which measure fluxes in eV/mm2/s (!) instead of
the more usual erg/cm2/s ?  :-) [sorry, I could not resist]

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lucio Chiappetti - IFCTR/CNR - via Bassini 15 - I-20133 Milano (Italy)      
For more info : http://www.ifctr.mi.cnr.it/~lucio/personal.html             
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Tim Pearson writes:
 > On Wed, 31 Mar 1999, Francois Ochsenbein wrote:
 > 
 > >    - the Ohm sould be written with a capitalized O,
 > >          to be consistent with its origin (physicist's name)
 > 
 > I disagree with this (trivial) point. I think that it is the normal
 > practice of publishers in the english-speaking world *not* to
 > capitalize the names of units, even those derived from proper names,
 > such as "newton", "ohm", "joule", "jansky", "ampre", "ngstrm", etc.
 > This may be a recommendation of the various international unions - I
 > am not sure - but it is certainly advocated by, for example, the Royal
 > Society (London).
 > 
 > This follows normal english practice, in which proper names are
 > capitalized, but not words derived from proper names, such as
 > "sandwich", "boycott", etc.

     We are here not talking about spelled out names generally but
about abreviations for units.  The Ohm and Angstrom ones are special
cases since A is amperes and a is ato and O likes too much like 0, so
we are spelling them out as "abreviations".  I note that the IAU style
manual refers to "janskys" as "Jy" which is what all radio astronomers
use.  I really don't care whether Angstrom or Ohm are capitalized, and
perhaps since we are spelling these out we should leave them without
capitals as the IAU style manual does with spelled out words and as
both units references actually do.

 > 
 > However, tastes differ; and there are some circumstances in which it
 > is appropriate to capitalize the name of a unit, such as at the
 > beginning of a sentence.  So software should be tolerant of variant
 > capitalization (i.e., it should be case-insensitive).

     If we become case insensitive, then m milli and M mega and A
ampere and a ato become hard to tell apart.  I am no fan of case
sensitivity, but it is unfortunately necessary here.  It is of course
true that a clever parser could have more lenient rules than the
standard - that is normal and perhaps even required of FITS readers in
general.

Eric Greisen

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To: Lucio Chiappetti <lucio at ifctr.mi.cnr.it>
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Subject: Re: Crab et al., a warning Re: wcs.ps
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Lucio Chiappetti writes:
 > On Thu, 1 Apr 1999, Eric Greisen wrote:
 > 
 > > Arnold Rots writes:
 > >  > I noticed that your list was missing the unit that is dear to many HEA
 > >  > types' hearts: the "Crab".  
 > 
 > >      if the Crab is as well defined as the Solar units, we could add
 > > it.  What is the definition?
 > 
 > About the definition of "1 Crab" I guess it could be good to agree a standard
 > definition. I believe everybody has one's own variant ...

      Arnold's earlier reply that "we don't want to go there" about
Crabs is well explained by your description of them.  I have no
intention of putting them in the paper, until the community gets a
much better definition.

 > 
 >                            BUT .. BUT ... BUT ...
 > 
 > One moment. Are we talking here of standardization of unit indication in
 > generic FITS files (tables) or just of WCS ?
 > And does not WCS apply "primarily" (or "originally") to IMAGES and
 > "secondarily" (or "more recently") to SPECTRA ?

     WCS applies to any observation of a physical quantity.  The issue
is most pressing when we attempt to associate coordinates with the
voxels in an image, but images as well as single pixels can and do
occur in tables and elsewhere.

 > 
 > I would expect it would be very difficult that the "spatial" axes of an image,
 > or the "dispersion" axis of a spectrum, would be measured in Crab units (or
 > in Ohm, if that matters).
 > So aren't we discussing about "the sex of angels" ?

     Derived quantities may also be sampled into images or tables and
expressed against whatever physical coordinates seem appropriate to
the Physics of the observation.  I have removed trigonometric
functions from wcs.ps but am concerned about matters that are indeed
functions of e.g. cos(latitude).  Maybe it is wrong to remove them.
I agree that Ohm is unlikely in astronomical data and so we are free
to change its spelling, but Crabs and Angstroms are not unlikely.

 > 
 >                             AND MORE BUT'S ...
 > 
 > Even if we would be discussing standardization of units in generic tables, I
 > reiterate my provocation, is it really worth while to go in extreme detail ?
 > For what are essentially "plot labels" ?

     WCS are not plot labels.  They have that function, but they have
a great deal more as well.  If units are expressed properly, then they
may be parsed in software and converted to other comparable units,
after which vast tables may be searched for matches, sub-set
selection, etc etc etc  This is now done with tabular data a great
deal with for example the NVSS survey here at NRAO and, judging by
Francois Ochsenbein's remarks, many of the tables at the Strasbourg
data center.  WCS for imagery is often used to regrid one image to the
coordinates of another so that the physics of the two may be compared
visually and numerically.  WCS is not a plot tool, it is a Physics
tool.

 > I'd expect humans (astronomers) be able to read a column heading and know what
 > it is (and convert to their favorite customary units) anyhow, while software
 > will just copy and use labels as they are, as "semantic-less" strings.
 > Do we really expect to have an all-encompassing universal routine library
 > which will convert any unit to any unit ?

      Yes - I do not have such a thing.  But I am told that numerous
Object Oriented tool sets (e.g. aips++) do have exactly that.  Current
data sets, tables, and images are already awfully large to depend on
astronomers to read them visually.  And as you point out below, the
working astronomer may not be the best equipped to understand
technical details of what you would force him to read.

 > 
 > I heard a saying "build a system than any fool can use, and only a fool will
 > want to use it". But it could also be reversed "build a standard that is too
 > clever, and nobody will be clever enough to want to use it".

      FITS as a whole was claimed when we started to be too hard
because we allowed and required BINARY data.  Where would we be today
if we had done only character-form data?  Where are ASCII tables
today?  I agree that we can get too fancy and I think that some
hierarchal relational data-base proposals that I have heard are just
that.  However, we do need also to get things right.  To leave things
inexact and prone to error and misinterpretation simply because "it is
too hard" is wrong.  The whole subject of WCS is hard and that is why
we have had to leave it until later in the FITS process.  It was
needed at the beginning (hence CDELTA, CTYPE etc in the first FITS
paper) and has been used in detail in some software from the early
1980s (e.g. aips).

 > 
 > I'm thinking of a recent discussion about a largish database private to a
 > smallish consortium (less than 10 institutes), of course to me it was obvious
 > to say FITS had to be used for interchange and not ASCII ... but it was
 > pointed to me that the programming competences of the "mean quadratic
 > astronomer" were quite below that mark ...
 > 
 > And if he/she will have difficulty in using age-old consolidated good old
 > plain FITS, is it likely it will adhere, or even check, a "marginal"
 > convention ?

     The initial software may not be the best that it could be.  But
with a good standard and the 3-sigma astronomer it can get better with
time if there is a standard to which it may aspire.  FITS tapes are
usually written even today with little or no WCS info.  They are
useful, but would be very much more useful if they had better WCS,
especially WCS that software would recognize.

 > 
 > Even when major agencies (funded also by my taxes) involved in major missions
 > produce and distribute tools which measure fluxes in eV/mm2/s (!) instead of
 > the more usual erg/cm2/s ?  :-) [sorry, I could not resist]

     But there is no problem with either of these units if they are
described properly.  The point of wcs.ps is to allow even misguided
folks to express their misguided opinions in such a fashion that other
misguided folks may correctly convert the data to their particular
religion.

     I knew that the units section would get people to talk about the
paper.  I just hope you are all also reading the rest of it and Paper
III (and Paper II when it becomes available).  The spectroscopy paper
is new and important.  FITS itself has guided how astronomers think of
their data and how software systems think of data for their users.
These WCS papers will, if adopted, affect how you will see data and
how you will receive them from your colleagues.

Eric Greisen

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From: Lucio Chiappetti <lucio at ifctr.mi.cnr.it>
To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu
Subject: Re: Crab et al., a warning Re: wcs.ps
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On Fri, 2 Apr 1999, Eric Greisen wrote:
> Lucio Chiappetti writes:
>  > On Thu, 1 Apr 1999, Eric Greisen wrote:
>  > > Arnold Rots writes:

>       Arnold's earlier reply that "we don't want to go there" about
> Crabs is well explained by your description of them.  I have no
> intention of putting them in the paper, until the community gets a
> much better definition.

  Ok for letting the Crab out

>  > One moment. Are we talking here of standardization of unit indication in
>  > generic FITS files (tables) or just of WCS ?
>  > And does not WCS apply "primarily" (or "originally") to IMAGES and
>  > "secondarily" (or "more recently") to SPECTRA ?
> 
>      WCS applies to any observation of a physical quantity.  The issue
> is most pressing when we attempt to associate coordinates with the
> voxels in an image, but images as well as single pixels can and do
> occur in tables and elsewhere.

  hmm ... tables within tables, or images within tables, look to me what
  you'd call "fancy" stuff.

  I do appreciate that an image can be other than a sky image (see one
  example further below), but most of the WCS image paper is for astrometry,
  or anyhow sky coordinate handling (and that's not particularly my field).
  
  Also a spectrum is in generally something quite defined (flux vs energy)
  although there can be peculiarities (and the WCS spectral papeer addresses
  many of them from optical astronomy, again things I'm not particularly
  familiar with) particularly for "raw" or "nearly raw" data.

  I could imagine the need of some standard for flux conversions of "reduced"
  spectra. I mainly think of the conversion of dN/dE vs E from/to Fnu vs nu,
  Flambda vs lambda, nuFnu (SED) etc.  with proper handling of error bars,
  and clear distinction of the case the single points in a spectrum are
  monochromatic or broad band fluxes (in which case proper conversion need
  to know the form of the underlying continuum !)

  But "any other thing" is just an "histogram" or "plot" of some y quantity
  vs some x quantity. Is it worthwhile to commit to a very hard enterprise
  of a fully general handler ?

  Or is it better to consider only the cases of images and spectra, and
  at most light curves and other timing analysis data structures (thinking of 
  x-axis which could be in time, frequency, or phase) ...

> I agree that Ohm is unlikely in astronomical data and so we are free
> to change its spelling, but Crabs and Angstroms are not unlikely.

Angstrom are extremely likely on the X (dispersion, or energy) axis of an UV
or optical spectrum. Crabs (a flux unit) are totally unlikely (probably
meaningless) as units of the axes of an image or a spectrum, and even if they
are flux units, quite unlikely also on the "Z axis" (BUNIT), or the Y axis of
a spectrum. They are likely to occur only in pure tables (catalog entries).

>      WCS are not plot labels.  They have that function, but they have
> a great deal more as well.

I've never told that WCS were plot labels, my reference to plot labels was to
the physical unit convention (i.e. the part of the Appendices which were not
immediately related to WCS). It was even farther from my mind to criticise or
diminish the WCS effort ! I do appreciate at least some usages of "original"
WCS for astrometry, and of course also the ones in the spectroscopy paper.

My doubts were on the insertion of the ENTIRE business of units into the WCS
approval process, particularly for what concerned "exotic" units, or anyhow
units outside the ra-dec-energy-flux (astrometry/spectroscopy) context.

After all the important thing in WCS are "internal transformation" (like sky
projections going beyond the original CRPIX CRVAl CDELT, or intrinsic usage of
"log(units)"   ... I tend myself to keep chi-square grid vs spectral index and
column density NH in form of images ... and of course NH has a log range ...).

But once there is a clear convention (-> WCS) to know that the value at pixel
coordinates i,j correspond a given log(NH),gamma, or instead to
log(pears),apples ... NH and gamma, or pears and apples, become plot labels.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lucio Chiappetti - IFCTR/CNR - via Bassini 15 - I-20133 Milano (Italy)      
For more info : http://www.ifctr.mi.cnr.it/~lucio/personal.html             
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Date: 3 Apr 1999 07:25:06 +0200
From: pausch at merope.saaf.se (Paul Schlyter)
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In article <199904021512.KAA26763 at primate.cv.nrao.edu>,
Eric Greisen  <egreisen at valen.cv.nrao.edu> wrote:

> Tim Pearson writes:
>> On Wed, 31 Mar 1999, Francois Ochsenbein wrote:
>> 
>>>    - the Ohm sould be written with a capitalized O,
>>>          to be consistent with its origin (physicist's name)
>> 
>> I disagree with this (trivial) point. I think that it is the normal
>> practice of publishers in the english-speaking world *not* to
>> capitalize the names of units, even those derived from proper names,
>> such as "newton", "ohm", "joule", "jansky", "ampre", "ngstrm", etc.
>> This may be a recommendation of the various international unions - I
>> am not sure - but it is certainly advocated by, for example, the Royal
>> Society (London).
>> 
>> This follows normal english practice, in which proper names are
>> capitalized, but not words derived from proper names, such as
>> "sandwich", "boycott", etc.
> 
>      We are here not talking about spelled out names generally but
> about abreviations for units.  The Ohm and Angstrom ones are special
> cases since A is amperes and a is ato and O likes too much like 0, so
> we are spelling them out as "abreviations".

The ngstrm unit is abbreviated "A" only in languages which lack "".

And the "Ohm" is not abbreviated as "O" but as (capital) Omega.

Finally: there are numerous other units which are abbreviated as a
capital letter.  For instance newton (N), joule (J), ......

-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------
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Grev Turegatan 40,  S-114 38 Stockholm,  SWEDEN
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Date: Sun, 4 Apr 1999 23:16:23 -0400
From: "Greg Mazujian" <gmazujian at jnpcs.com>
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Hello,
        I am new to FITS .  I have Microsoft Visual C++ v5.0.  I am also new
to that.  I downloaded the FITS programs from NASA and attempted to compile
them, but to no avail. I received so many errors.   Any idea what I am doing
wrong? Thanks in advance

Greg

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To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu
Date: Tue, 6 Apr 1999 19:42:37 +0200
From: andekl at saaf.se (Anders Eklof)
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Reply-To: andeeklo at mbox.ki.se
Subject: Re: units
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Eric Greisen <egreisen at valen.cv.nrao.edu> wrote:

> Tim Pearson writes:
>  > On Wed, 31 Mar 1999, Francois Ochsenbein wrote:
>  > 
>  > >    - the Ohm sould be written with a capitalized O,
>  > >          to be consistent with its origin (physicist's name)
>  > 
>  > I disagree with this (trivial) point. I think that it is the normal
>  > practice of publishers in the english-speaking world *not* to
>  > capitalize the names of units, even those derived from proper names,
>  > such as "newton", "ohm", "joule", "jansky", "ampre", "ngstrm", etc.
>  > This may be a recommendation of the various international unions - I
>  > am not sure - but it is certainly advocated by, for example, the Royal
>  > Society (London).
>  > 
>  > This follows normal english practice, in which proper names are
>  > capitalized, but not words derived from proper names, such as
>  > "sandwich", "boycott", etc.
> 
>      We are here not talking about spelled out names generally but
> about abreviations for units.

Judging from what I can see above (physicist's name), spelled out names
is exactly what we are talking about. 

-- 
* Anders Eklf        * Phone: + 46 8581 74712  * "I blame you for *
* Glimmerstigen 46    * e-mail: ae at radfys.ks.se * the moonlit sky" *
* S-196 33 KUNGSNGEN *     or  andekl at saaf.se  *       ----       *
* SWEDEN              *                         *   Tasmin Archer  *

From owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu  Thu Apr  8 08:53:58 1999
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Date: Wed, 7 Apr 1999 13:54:32 -0400 (EDT)
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From: Eric Greisen <egreisen at valen.cv.nrao.edu>
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Minor mostly typographic changes have been made in both documents.
The velocity system parameters have been clarified (I hope) in scs.ps
and certain numeric values in wcs.ps have been corrected.  These
papers will ultimately affect how we think about our data - please
read them.  They are at

     ftp://ftp.cv.nrao.edu/NRAO-staff/egreisen/wcs.ps
     ftp://ftp.cv.nrao.edu/NRAO-staff/egreisen/Scs.ps

Mark is again hard at work on Paper II.  We will announce its
availability asap.

Thanks, Eric Greisen

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To: Eric Greisen <egreisen at valen.cv.nrao.edu>
Cc: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu
Subject: Re: units 
In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 2 Apr 1999 10:12:30 -0500 (EST) .
Date: Thu, 08 Apr 1999 00:05:15 +0200
From: Francois Ochsenbein <francois at vizir.u-strasbg.fr>
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Eric,

I just proofread the last version of table4 and there are just the
following typos:
=> remove the dagger in front of u (unified atomic mass unit), and ph
   (difficult to envisage milli-photons...), and solMass (an error in
   my previous message, sorry...)
=> could add the dagger in front of mag (the millimag is used, but I don't
   know other multiples in use)
=> the 26 exponent in the solLum definition is missing {}

Let me know whenever the Paper II is ready, I'm eager to read it !

Thank you again, and sorry if my questions on units generated so
many messages... but it helped to clarify the topic. I'm sure !
Francois
================================================================================
Francois Ochsenbein       ------       Observatoire Astronomique de Strasbourg
   11, rue de l'Universite F-67000 STRASBOURG       Phone: +33-(0)3 88 150 755
Email: francois at simbad.u-strasbg.fr   (France)        Fax: +33-(0)3 88 150 740
================================================================================

From owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu  Thu Apr  8 09:05:53 1999
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Date: Wed, 7 Apr 1999 21:28:10 -0400 (EDT)
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From: Eric Greisen <egreisen at valen.cv.nrao.edu>
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To: Francois Ochsenbein <francois at vizir.u-strasbg.fr>
Cc: Eric Greisen <egreisen at valen.cv.nrao.edu>, fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu
Subject: Re: units 
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Francois Ochsenbein writes:

 > I just proofread the last version of table4 and there are just the
 > following typos:
 > => remove the dagger in front of u (unified atomic mass unit), and ph
 >    (difficult to envisage milli-photons...), and solMass (an error in
 >    my previous message, sorry...)

     I was visualizing Mega photons - but maybe that's just wishful
thinking outside the radio range.  Done

 > => could add the dagger in front of mag (the millimag is used, but I don't
 >    know other multiples in use)

     Done

 > => the 26 exponent in the solLum definition is missing {}

     Typos re exponents (several) were fixed today.

 > 
 > Let me know whenever the Paper II is ready, I'm eager to read it !

     So am I - I have seen bits of it and Mark is doing a wonderful
job.

 > 
 > Thank you again, and sorry if my questions on units generated so
 > many messages... but it helped to clarify the topic. I'm sure !

      They have caused a better standard to be proposed and one that
unites two groups I hope.  Your comments and repeated followups are
very much appreciated.

Thanks, Eric

From owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu  Thu Apr  8 23:45:41 1999
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To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu
Date: 8 Apr 1999 17:37:16 -0500
From: Pete Ratzlaff <rpete at ascda3.harvard.edu>
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Subject: ANNOUNCE: CFITSIO.pm v0.91
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Hello all,

A new version of the Perl interface to William Pence's CFITSIO
subroutine library is available. This version synchronizes with
CFITSIO v2.031, and requires that version or later for proper
installation. For more information on the CFITSIO subroutine library,
see http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/fitsio

New features in CFITSIO.pm v0.91 include:

* implemented functions:
     - fits_get_col_display_width
     - fits_url_type
     - fits_real_col_bit_usht
     - fits_real_col_bit_uint

* several bug fixes

This version can be obtained at:
  http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~rpete/cfitsio/CFITSIO-0.91.tar.gz

And also on your local CPAN mirror under:
  modules/by-authors/id/P/PR/PRATZLAFF/CFITSIO-0.91.tar.gz

As always, you can find the latest version of CFITSIO.pm at
  http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~rpete/cfitsio

Cheers,
-Pete Ratzlaff <pratzlaff at cfa.harvard.edu>

From owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu  Fri Apr  9 13:30:08 1999
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Date: Fri, 9 Apr 1999 13:24:25 -0400 (EDT)
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From: Eric Greisen <egreisen at valen.cv.nrao.edu>
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Subject: wcs.ps and scs.ps
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Both wcs.ps and scs.ps have had modifications made.  The latter was
primarily the addition of a reference on relativistic velocities
suggested by Don Wells.  wcs.ps was changed to implement the
suggestion copied below.  Remarks about the actual (deprecated) status
of CDELT were added by me.  This status means that CDELT and its
offspring may be used in writing, but only if the new forms are not
used  (i.e. CDji, PVj_m and version codes other than blank).  The
political machinations have settled on the idea that CDELT is
deprecated but will have to be understood by readers for a long time
to come.  We are recommending that, either one uses solely older forms
of coordinates or solely newer forms.  Mark and I miss the simplicity
of the CDELT formulation, but understand some of the problems
perceived by the people who opposed the CDELT * PC formulation we had
proposed.  The desire for separate spelling for primary and secondary
forms (below) is an offshoot of the change from CDELT * PC to CDj_i.

Oh well, I think we are converging.  Is there anyone who does not
think so?  See

      ftp://ftp.cv.nrao.edu/NRAO-staff/egreisen/wcs.ps
      ftp://ftp.cv.nrao.edu/NRAO-staff/egreisen/scs.ps

Thanks, 

Eric W. Greisen

--------------- Mail received from the OGIP project -------------------

Subject: Re: wcs draft
Date: Thu, 08 Apr 1999 17:40:58 -0400

Eric,

Here is a revision to the Table 7 in your wcs paper that has been
recommended by representatives of several high energy astrophysics
groups.  The main change is that instead of having 'old' and 'new'
versions of these keywords in the table, we continue to use the same
keywords as have been used in the past when no version code letter is
used, and adopt the new root names for the keywords only when the version
code letter is used.  The advantage of this is that the large body of
software that reads and writes the old keywords will continue to work in
the future in most cases (when no version letter is needed).

Sincerely,

Lorella Angelini,  HEASARC/SAX
Keith Arnaud,      HEASARC
Mike Corcoran,     HEASARC/ROSAT
Tom McGlynn,       HEASARC
Koji Mukai,        HEASARC/ASCA
William Pence,     HEASARC
Steve Snowden,     HEASARC/XMM
Jonathan McDowell, AXAF Science Center
Arnold Rots,       AXAF Science Center

- ---------------------------------------------------------------
 Keyword                Image   BINTABLE vector  Pixel List
 Description            Array   Primary 2ndary   Primary 2ndary
 --------------------------------------------------------------
 Axis Type              CTYPEjs  jCTYPn jCTYns   TCTYPn TCTYns
 Axis Units             CUNITjs  jCUNIn jCUNns   TCUNIn TCUNns
 Reference value        CRVALjs  jCRVLn jCRVns   TCRVLn TCRVns
 Reference point        CRPIXis  iCRPXn iCRPns   TCRPXk TCRPks
 Transformation matrix  CDj_is   jiCDn  jiCDns   TCDn_k TCn_ks
 Coordinate parameter   PVj_ms   jPVn_m jPn_ms   TPVn_m TPn_ms
 Coordinate increment   CDELTj   jCDLTn jCDLns   TCDLTn TCDLns

------- end -------

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Date: Fri, 09 Apr 1999 21:12:56 +0000
From: Godzilla <nmontec at tin.it>
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Subject: raw fits images?
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Hello all,

I am looking for raw fits images took with amatorial telescopes. Where
may I find them?

Thanks in advance

Nicola

From owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu  Sat Apr 10 20:17:42 1999
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Date: Sat, 10 Apr 1999 11:30:48 +0200
From: Jan Lustrup <lustrup at online.no>
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Subject: Re: raw fits images?
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Godzilla wrote:
> 
> Hello all,
> 
> I am looking for raw fits images took with amatorial telescopes. Where
> may I find them?
> 
> Thanks in advance
> 
> Nicola
Whats <amatorial>????
-- 

Jan Lustrup LA3EQ
Norway "http://home.sol.no/~lustrup/index.html"

From owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu  Tue Apr 13 12:57:36 1999
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From: hanisch at stsci.edu (Bob Hanisch)
Message-Id: <199904121755.NAA02326 at iris.stsci.edu>
To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu
Subject: Version 100-2.0 of NASA FITS Standard released
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					12 April 1999

To the FITS Community:

  I am pleased to announce that NASA's Office of Standards and Technology
(NOST) Accreditation Panel has reviewed and endorsed the revised FITS standard.
The new version of the standard, 100-2.0, is dated 29 March 1999 and is
available in Postscript, compressed (gzip) Postscript, and PDF formats at
http://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/.

  On behalf of the FITS Technical Panel, I would like to thank everyone who
submitted comments concerning the draft standard.  These comments helped the
Technical Panel identify ambiguities in the document which (we hope) we have
been able to repair.

  Attached below is a statement from Don Wells, chair of the IAU FITS
Working Group and member of the NOST Accreditation Panel.  I encourage
everyone with an interest in FITS to read it carefully, as Don has done
an extremely thorough job of reviewing the new standard.  He explains what
the Technical Panel has done and why, and why he believes that the regional
FITS Committees and IAU FITS Working Group should now move quickly to adopt
the new standard also.

  Finally, as someone who has worked on the FITS Standard for many years
now, I note with some pride that FITS has just passed its 20th anniversary.
The adoption of V100-2.0 by NOST is a fitting birthday present for us all!

  Please circulate this message to others in the astronomy community who
may have an interest in FITS.

Thanks,

Bob Hanisch
Chair, NASA FITS Technical Panel
Data Systems Division
Space Telescope Science Institute

-----

              Notes on the NOST FITS Standard & Process

                     Don Wells <dwells at nrao.edu>

      FITS community representative on NOST Accreditation Panel
              Chair of IAU FITS Working Group [IAU-FWG]

                              1999-03-19

     SUMMARY: The NOST [NASA Office of Standards and Technology]
     process which produced the NOST_100-1.2 draft standard appears to
     me to have been conducted properly, and to have produced a result
     which is acceptable. I therefore vote 'yes' on the question of
     whether this document should be accredited and become the FITS
     standard for NASA. Furthermore, I conclude that NOST_100-1.2
     contains no 'uncorrectable errors'. I therefore recommend that,
     if no such errors are uncovered by the FITS committees, the
     committees should approve NOST_100-1.2 as the new official FITS
     standard of the International Astronomical Union [IAU].

                         -=- Introduction -=-

I was asked by NOST to act as the FITS community representative on
their Accreditation Panel [NOST-AP], in order to review the *process*
by which the NOST_100-1.2 document was produced. NOST specified that
"..the Accreditation Panel should ensure that,

      - the proposed standard is of high general quality (well
        organized, readable),
      - the target community was adequately notified of the draft
        standard and was afforded adequate chances to comment on the
        draft,
      - and comments were appropriately handled.  In addressing
        comments, consensus need not be reached, but the Technical Panel
        needs to address all issues raised.  There should not be
        inordinate influence by any special interest group.."

In the discussion which follows I will reference two documents which
are available at http://ssdoo.gsfc.nasa.gov/nost/apanel, "FITS
Accreditation Panel Support Materials" [FAPSM, 1999-03-04, 69 pages]
and "Definition of FITS, version 1.2" [DoF1.2, 1999-01-22, 96 pages].
After addressing the three accreditation criteria listed above, I will
discuss the relationship of the NOST Technical Panel [NOST-TP] to the
International Astronomical Union [IAU] FITS Working Group [IAU-FWG]
and the special problem of 'uncorrectable errors'.

           -=- Is NOST_100-1.2 of high general quality? -=-

My answer to this question is an emphatic 'yes!'.  However, I also
reviewed the comments to see whether the FITS community is critical of
the general character of the document. For example, comment#1
[FAPSM:5.2,#1,p34] asks that deprecated features be highlighted in
bold font. Comment#19 [p37-38] wants the Random Groups discussion
reorganized. Comment#127 [p.58] says that a different form of
Backus-Naur notation should be used in Appendix A of DoF1.2. These are
rather minor criticisms of the style of the document.  In each case
the NOST-TP declined to make the style change requested, and I
consider the justifications given for these decisions to be reasonable
enough.

   -=- Were notification and opportunities to comment adequate? -=-

The April 1998 announcement [FAPSM:4.0,p7] that NOST_100-1.2 was
available for review was posted to a number of Email exploders and
newsgroups (see the 'To' line of the message header on p.7). In
particular, it was posted to newsgroup sci.astro.fits and its
associated exploder 'fitsbits' which are the official places on the
Internet where discussions of FITS occur.  The announcement specified
that comments should be posted publicly, not sent privately to the
NOST-TP. This resulted in public followups by the community to the
comments, and followups to the followups. In effect, the opportunity
to comment was publicly announced repeatedly over a three month period.

Some controversial issues produced extensive threads of public
discussion, giving the Technical Panel a good sampling of the opinions
of the FITS community.  Four notable cases can be seen in FAPSM: [1]
the proposal that OBJECT strings should conform to IAU Designations
recommendations [FAPSM:5.2,#77-91,p51-53], [2] the proposal that FITS
should support 64-bit integers [FAPSM:5.2,#142,p.61], [3] the proposal
that FITS should support unsigned integers [FAPSM:5.2,#143,p.61] and
[4] the strong demand that the NOST-TP delete or soften its
deprecation of Random Groups [FAPSM:5.2,#144,p.61]. In all four cases
the NOST-TP refused to take the action requested. I have reviewed the
four responses, and consider them to be reasonable enough. The
extensive public discussion of these controversial (and perennial)
issues is an exemplary aspect of the *process* of creation of this
standard.

Comments were received from a diverse group of people: 11 Europeans, 6
non-NASA US national center people, 9 US university people and 6
NASA-related people. Many of the 11 Europeans are members of the
European FITS committee, of course. Designers associated with most of
the major software packages of astronomy are in the group that offered
comments on DoF1.2. I conclude that the comments received by NOST-TP
were reasonably representative of opinion in the worldwide FITS
community.

               -=- Were comments properly handled? -=-

In my opinion, the NOST-TP was quite responsive to the technical
comments they received. In many of the comments and responses there is
plenty of room for reasonable people to differ; a good example of such
differences is the manner of specifying the rules for 4-digit and
2-digit years in date strings [FAPSM:5.2,#71,p49-50].

The NOST-TP generally refused to establish new *policy* for FITS,
declaring policy issues to be the prerogative of IAU-FWG and 'out of
scope' for the Panel.  The NOST-TP did make decisions on a variety of
technical (non-policy) issues which were previously ambiguous in the
FITS standards. The question of which issues are technical and which
are policy (political) matters is certainly a judgement call, and
reasonable people can differ in these matters. Items [1], [2] and [3]
cited in the previous section are examples where the NOST-TP ruled
that proposed changes were out-of-scope. In these three cases I think
the NOST-TP made the only ruling which they could properly make.

For example, consider item [1] above, in which I (Don Wells) asked the
NOST-TP to specify that value strings for OBJECT keywords should be in
conformance with recommendations of the IAU TG on Designations. The
NOST-TP refused. I not only accept this ruling against me, I applaud
it, because we should not attempt to short-circuit the political
process for making such decisions. In fact, I predicted that NOST-TP
would rule against me, but submitted my request anyway as a means to
get the issue before the community, to start the necessary process of
creating consensus which might lead, ultimately, to an IAU-FWG
agreement on the issue. This particular issue is still being debated
in the FITS community; only two weeks ago an astronomer asked about
OBJECT rules and got this reply from a member of the NOST-TP:

    "The NOST panel decided it was out of scope of its charter to
    introduce new restrictions or rules for the value of the OBJECT
    keyword or to define a new reserved keyword such as IAUDESIG,
    without the prior general agreement of the FITS community."
    [W.Pence sci.astro.fits 1999-03-10]

Has there been 'inordinate influence by any special interest group' in
the responses of the NOST-TP to the comments they received?  Some
members of the worldwide FITS community might worry that requirements
or desires of specific NASA flight missions or facilities might exert
an undue influence on the deliberations of the NOST-TP, due to the
large number of NASA-related people on the NOST-TP (see
[DoF1.2:Preface,p.'i'] for current and past members of NOST-TP). I
have reviewed this question, and have concluded that these people
represent multiple distinct missions with differing goals and
operating in different types of radiation (UV, optical, IR), and that
probably no single private agenda could dominate the processes of the
NOST-TP. Both science and computing people are represented on the
current and past NOST panels. I have also concluded that no single
large software system is over-represented on NOST-TP; for example, the
current panel includes the designer of AIPS (radio synthesis imaging),
the chair of the IRAF (optical) Technical Working Group and the
designer of the FITSIO package (high energy). Each of these people has
institutional and project ties to international partners, and can be
expected to consider the international aspects of their decisions.  I
conclude that any FITS feature decision which is acceptable to this
set of people and the rest of the NOST-TP is likely to be acceptable
to the whole worldwide FITS community.

                        -=- Accreditation -=-

I conclude that the three criteria which NOST specified for the
NOST-AP to review have been satisfied, and therefore

                            +------------+
                            | I vote YES |
                            +------------+

on the question of whether DoF1.2 should advance from draft status to
become the NASA FITS standard.

In the remainder of this memorandum, I will review other criteria
which will be relevant in the process by which DoF1.2 might become the
official FITS standard of the IAU.

       -=- NOST Technical Panel: history, membership, role -=-

The history of the versions of NOST_100-x.y produced by the NOST-TP is
tabulated at [DoF1.2:J.0,p91]. Five different 1.x versions of the
document have been publicly released over the past six years. These
documents have been in regular use throughout the FITS community as
the de facto FITS standards, in spite of the fact that the IAU-FWG has
not yet formally endorsed any of them. DoF1.2 differs from the 1.1
version by a set of incremental changes which are tabulated in
[FAPSM:6.2.I,pp62-64]. Some of the changes are merely rearrangements
(such as moving the BINTABLE definition from an unofficial appendix to
the main body of the formal standard). The point of mentioning this
history is to emphasize that DoF1.2 is the latest version of a
sequence of draft documents which have, for nearly a decade now, been
in regular use and regular review by the FITS community as the de
facto FITS standards. DoF1.2 therefore entered this final formal
review process with the knowledge that most parts of it have already
been reviewed and effectively approved by its end-user community many
times over many years.

Regarding the membership of NOST-TP, a key fact to note is that a
number of the members are also members of the North American
(AAS-WGAS) FITS Committee and/or the IAU-FWG. This is not a conflict
of interest if you view the NOST-TP and even the regional FITS
committees as acting somewhat like committees and subcommittees in the
typical legislative process: members of the full body are appointed to
develop proposals for the full body to consider.

What is the role of the NOST-TP with respect to the IAU-FWG and the
three regional FITS committees? The IAU-FWG never voted to charter the
NOST-TP activity, and so the NOST-TP has no official status from the
IAU-FWG point of view. However, it is a fact that ten years ago I and
other members of the FITS committees recommended that the NASA
Astrophysics Division fund the FITS standardization effort as a part
of the FITS Support Office activity under NOST. We understood that it
would not be practical to negotiate the myriad of details of an
official standards document by the usual FITS negotiation processes.
At that time (and still today) there was no other agency which could
fund such an effort.  My opinion, as current Chair of IAU-FWG, is that
the NOST-TP has acted as an ad hoc task force which has done the hard
work of preparing a clean version of the FITS standards for the
IAU-FWG.  The Chair of the NOST-TP recently commented of the role of
NOST-TP:

    "My view has always been that the Technical Panel was put into
    place to look at the options and select the best solution, rather
    than simply turn the discussion loose in the community." 
    [Bob Hanisch, private communication 1999-03-10] 

I consider the diversity and the technical skills of the NOST-TP to be
about as good as could be achieved in practice. If a similar but
different set of individuals had been picked for NOST-TP, I expect
that they would have produced a similar, but not identical result. I
therefore see no reason to revisit any of the many issues which the
NOST-TP has debated and settled in their many work sessions.

If it is accredited, the NOST FITS standard will be submitted to the
three regional FITS committees, and will thereby become an official
document in the IAU-FWG process. 

    +--------------------------------------------------------------+
    | I recommend that the regional FITS committees and IAU-FWG    |
    | accept the DoF1.2 document as-is, without further changes,   |
    | assuming no 'uncorrectable errors' are discovered in review. |
    +--------------------------------------------------------------+

                  -=- On 'Uncorrectable Errors' -=-

The FITS community has agreed that changes to FITS will always be
backwards compatible (often described as 'once FITS, always FITS').
The policy is explicitly specified in NOST_100-1.2 (DoF1.2:9.0,p.51).
The policy implies that FITS standards committees must be especially
careful when drafting new FITS standards to avoid making decisions
which they might later wish they had not made, because it will be
difficult if not impossible to correct those errors. 

In particular, the committees should be cautious whenever they are
specifying rules which will preclude whole paths which the future
evolution of FITS might want to take.  Furthermore, they should be
cautious whenever they are specifying rules beyond the minimum set
needed for interchange, because of the risk of precluding innovative
uses of 'holes' in the ruleset. FITS must always leave room for growth
and innovation.  Therefore, I have reviewed the decisions of the
NOST-TP to check for cases where decisions have been made by the
NOST-TP which cannot be easily corrected by future IAU-FWG actions or
where decisions have been made which might limit growth or innovation.
The NOST-TP was sensitive to the future evolution of FITS; for
example, in [FAPSM:5.2,#26,p39] they note that 'special records' are a
key 'escape hatch' for the format and in [FAPSM:5.2,#28,p40] they
deliberately leave room for a definition which they do not specify.

I have reviewed the changes from DoF1.1 (1995-09) to DoF1.2
[FAPSM:6.2.I,p62]. In section 5.2, NOST-TP decided that keyword values
cannot be an array of values. This is an instance in which NOST-TP has
explicitly deleted functionality which was specified in the original
FITS Agreement of 1979. Eric Greisen, who negotiated that Agreement
with me in 1979, is a member of NOST-TP, and he tells me that the
NOST-TP believed that the functionality has never been used, and so no
harm is being done. I now believe that multivalued keywords are a bad
design idea, on grounds that they are an example of 'repeating groups'
in database design, and therefore I agree with this decision by
NOST-TP.

I reviewed the changes from DoF1.2draft to DoF1.2 [FAPSM:6.2.II,p64],
but saw no 'uncorrectable error' issues.

I reviewed my list of possible evolutionary paths for FITS (see
section 5 of http://www.cv.nrao.edu/adass/adassVI/wellsd.html), but
found nothing precluded by DoF1.2 rules. 

I reviewed the list of differences from the IAU FITS papers
[DoF1.2:E,p71] but found no issues not discussed elsewhere in this
memorandum. 

I am aware of three instances in which NOST-TP has definitely extended
the FITS standards, not just clarified or codified them:

* Section 5.1.2.3 [DoF1.2:p16] allows keyword value fields to be
  blank, i.e. 'undefined'. This concept has been invented by NOST-TP.

* Section 5.2.1 [DoF1.2:p16-17] says: "..no length limit less than 68
  is implied for character-valued keywords" (previously, FITS rules
  said that some keywords should carry their information in 8 chars).

* Section 8.1.4 [DoF1.2:p38] says regarding the data arrays of TABLE
  extensions: "There may be characters in a table row that are not
  included in any field". I have searched, but have found no rule
  which limits what those characters may be, other than the opening
  sentence of 8.1.3 which says they must be "ASCII characters"
  (defined on p.7 as 7-bit ASCII, which includes the 'ASCII Control'
  column of Table G.1 on p.82). The TABLE extension paper
  [Astron. Astrophys. Suppl. Ser. 73, 365-372 (1988)] makes it
  absolutely clear that the TABLE data matrix is to be *printable*
  ASCII codes, but the NOST-TP rule will allow *non-printable* codes
  such as CR, LF and HT into characters which are not a part of table
  entry fields.

In my opinion these three actions by NOST-TP are good things
('removing unneeded restrictions' as noted in [FAPSM:5.2,#135,p60]),
and the community should endorse them implicitly by adopting DoF1.2. I
believe they will not cause any uncorrectable error problems.

In the cases where NOST-TP declared that some proposed change would be
'out of scope' for NOST-TP, and declined to act, there is nothing to
prevent members of the FITS community submitting proposals to their
regional FITS committees, persuading the other FITS committees to
endorse them and then persuading IAU-FWG to adopt them. Future
versions of NOST's DoF will then be modified to incorporate such
rulings by IAU-FWG. 

The case of the 'deprecation' of the Random Groups format is somewhat
troubling; it produced a major thread of discussion during the comment
period [FAPSM:5.2,#144,p61]. This problem arose because ten years ago,
when the BINTABLE extension became part of the FITS standards, there
was a general desire to replace Random Groups with BINTABLE in all
production applications, and it was generally believed that this would
naturally happen during the 90s. The NOST-TP therefore deprecated
Random Groups in early versions of DoF.  It is still possible that
BINTABLE will replace Random Groups in production, but it can be
argued that the transition has failed for various sociological and
political reasons, and that Random Groups will be used forevermore.
The people who take the latter position strongly object to the
deprecation of Random Groups in DoF1.2, while the NOST-TP takes the
position that the issue was decided many years ago and they don't want
to change back. This is a question of exactly how the definition of
'deprecated' is worded in Section 3 [p8] of DoF1.2, and of exactly how
the deprecation is worded in the introductory paragraph of Section 7
[p31]. In any case, radio and optical interferometry instrument
systems will continue to write Random Groups as needed, all future
versions of the FITS standard will be obliged to continue reproducing
the rules of random groups as an official part of the FITS standard
*forever* and the relevant datasystems will be obliged to support the
reading of Random Groups *forever*, so this wording dispute has no
effect on astronomy research. In particular, it does not involve an
uncorrectable error.

    +----------------------------------------------------------------+
    | I conclude that decisions made by NOST-TP have not produced    |
    | any 'uncorrectable errors' which would be risky for IAU-FWG to |
    | endorse by adopting DoF1.2 as the new IAU FITS standard.       |
    +----------------------------------------------------------------+

                -=- Trivial Typographical Errorss -=-

* remove 'to' from 'Deprecated' definition on p.8 of DoF1.2.
* reword the last sentence of item 33 on p.78 of DoF1.2.

[Note:  the above errors have been corrected, and the cover page, etc.,
have been updated to reflect the new version number and change in status
from draft to final form.  RJH, 29 March 1999.]

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Date: Wed, 14 Apr 1999 10:57:04 +0200
From: "Arno M. Plug" <aplug at iso.vilspa.esa.es>
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Subject: FITS and Java
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Hi,

I am looking for any information on any Java packages/implementations
that provide ways of browsing and visualizing scientific data in FITS
format. In case you know any or about any related information, please
let me know.

Thanks and regards,

Arno.

From owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu  Wed Apr 14 18:54:59 1999
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From: Peter Bunclark <psb at ast.cam.ac.uk>
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The last thing you did wrong was to not state precisely what the first
error was.

Peter.

Greg Mazujian wrote:

> Hello,
>         I am new to FITS .  I have Microsoft Visual C++ v5.0.  I am also new
> to that.  I downloaded the FITS programs from NASA and attempted to compile
> them, but to no avail. I received so many errors.   Any idea what I am doing
> wrong? Thanks in advance
>
> Greg

From owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu  Thu Apr 15 14:37:54 1999
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To: "Arno M. Plug" <aplug at iso.vilspa.esa.es>
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Subject: Re: FITS and Java
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Dear Arno,

There are a systems available for handling FITS
in Java.  You may want to look at the Java FITS
library that I've written to access image and binary
table FITS data. [Try the links
in http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/heasarc/fits/fits_libraries.html ]

There are higher level visualization packages avaiable.
The NCSA's Horizon system does 2-D visualization of FITS images
[ http://imagelib.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Horizon ]
There's a package WebWinds developed at JPL which handles FITS data
and includes visualization tools.
[ http://webwinds.jpl.nasa.gov/ ]

There are several other systems, e.g., SkyView, in which a visualizer for
FITS images is embedded and where one might extract the relevant code.
[ Try the Java interface under http://skyview.gsfc.nasa.gov ]

Hope these starting points help.

	Regards,
	Tom McGlynn
	NASA/GSFC

"Arno M. Plug" wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I am looking for any information on any Java packages/implementations
> that provide ways of browsing and visualizing scientific data in FITS
> format. In case you know any or about any related information, please
> let me know.
> 
> Thanks and regards,
> 
> Arno.

From owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu  Sun Apr 18 19:06:18 1999
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Date: 16 Apr 1999 16:11:07 GMT
From: nolan at deuteron.lpl.arizona.edu (Michael Nolan)
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Subject: Re: wcs.ps and scs.ps
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Comments on the wcs paper (1999 April 9 version):

I can reasonably forsee the usefullness of airmass and unit optical depth
as axis dimensions.  

In table 4, adu means A/D converter.  Do you mean converter (as in
physical device), or do you mean DN?  I can see a value in both, and
have a specific need for the former, since we have four parallel IF
chains simultaneously sampled.

You removed the trig functions, which are mainly useful for projections,
and can be handled in paper II, but have other applications, such
as airmass again.  I suspect that if trig functions are needed, they
will simply be used withut difficulty.  The main problem would be how to
represent the inverse trig functions, as it would be better to choose now than
to have all of the possibilities be used later.

-- 
Mike Nolan +1 809 878 2612 ext 280 Fax: +1 809 878 1861 nolan at naic.edu
Arecibo Observatory/Cornell University POBox 995, Arecibo, Puerto Rico 00613

From owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu  Mon Apr 19 11:36:25 1999
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Subject: Re: wcs.ps and scs.ps
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Michael Nolan writes:
 > Comments on the wcs paper (1999 April 9 version):
 > 
 > I can reasonably forsee the usefullness of airmass and unit optical depth
 > as axis dimensions.  

     I am unfamiliar with airmass, does it have a clear definition?
Optical depth is unitless.  Can you describe how specifying that it is
optical depth in the units string (rather than the CTYPEn string) is
needed.

 > 
 > In table 4, adu means A/D converter.  Do you mean converter (as in
 > physical device), or do you mean DN?  I can see a value in both, and
 > have a specific need for the former, since we have four parallel IF
 > chains simultaneously sampled.

    I am also unfamiliar with these units.  Can Francois or one of the
units gurus at OGIP comment on this?

 > 
 > You removed the trig functions, which are mainly useful for projections,

    Actually they have no use whatsoever in celestial projections.
The only units strings are 'deg' in Paper II, which should be
announced in < 1 day I hope.

 > and can be handled in paper II, but have other applications, such
 > as airmass again.  I suspect that if trig functions are needed, they
 > will simply be used withut difficulty.  The main problem would be how to
 > represent the inverse trig functions, as it would be better to choose now than
 > to have all of the possibilities be used later.

     I do not know what use inverse trig functions could have and how
to attach meaning to them as units.  Do you have any specific examples
in mind?  Please describe some in detail.  I agree that cos(elevation)
axes have occurred to me.  Are there other uses for even the forward
trig functions?  We need help from the community in such matters
because our experience has serious limitations.

BTW: I have put a new version of wcs.ps out with a few additions to
the pixel regularization section - a keyword to specify the magnitude
of the correction on each axis.  See
     ftp://ftp.cv.nrao.edu/NRAO-staff/egreisen/wcs.ps.gz

Thanks, 

Eric W. Greisen

From owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu  Mon Apr 19 12:13:02 1999
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From: nolan at naic.edu (Mike Nolan)
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>      I am unfamiliar with airmass, does it have a clear definition?

Airmass is atmospheric optical depth normalized to zenith optical depth
assuming a spherically uniform atmosphere.  It is usually
approximated as sec(zenith angle), which is the only other case
(besides sin za) I can think of that needs explicit trig.  One
generally measures extinction as a function of airmass for calibration
of optical photometry.

I don't have any idea why one would need inverse trig functions, I
only wanted to note that they are one of the cases where you'd rather
choose the notation in advance.

-Mike

---------------------------
Mike Nolan <nolan at naic.edu>
+1 787 878 2612 Home: +1 787 895 6746 Fax: +1 787 878 1861
Arecibo Observatory / Cornell University
HC03 Box 53995, Arecibo, Puerto Rico 00612

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Subject: Re: wcs.ps and scs.ps
In-Reply-To: <199904191512.LAA22968 at primate.cv.nrao.edu> from Eric Greisen at "Apr 19, 99 11:12:39 am"
To: egreisen at valen.cv.nrao.edu (Eric Greisen)
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 13:22:49 -0400 (EDT)
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Eric Greisen wrote:
> Michael Nolan writes:
>  > Comments on the wcs paper (1999 April 9 version):
>  > 
>  > In table 4, adu means A/D converter.  Do you mean converter (as in
>  > physical device), or do you mean DN?  I can see a value in both, and
>  > have a specific need for the former, since we have four parallel IF
>  > chains simultaneously sampled.
> 
>     I am also unfamiliar with these units.  Can Francois or one of the
> units gurus at OGIP comment on this?

adu is the (pseudo-)unit of the raw numbers as they come out of the
A/D converter device - to be transformed into energy.
In HEA, it typically (but nor exclusively) refers to the output of A/D
converters that process CCD read-outs,

  - Arnold

> 
> 
> Eric W. Greisen

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Arnold H. Rots                                         AXAF Science Center
Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory                tel:  +1 617 496 7701
60 Garden Street, MS 81                              fax:  +1 617 495 7356
Cambridge, MA 02138                             arots at head-cfa.harvard.edu
USA                                     http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~arots/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Subject: WCS paper 2
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Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1999 17:46:46 +1000
From: Mark Calabretta <Mark.Calabretta at atnf.csiro.au>
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Paper II in the WCS series "Representations of Celestial Coordinates in
FITS" is now available for comment.

The draft dated 1999/04/20 is available immediately from my home page
http://www.atnf.csiro.au/people/mcalabre.  By the time most people read
this it should also be available from Eric's ftp area
ftp://ftp.cv.nrao.edu/NRAO-staff/egreisen.

Apart from changes required for conformity with Paper I, the main
changes have been to clarify some subtle points, explain why some things
had to be done as they were, provide additional background material, and
provide a further example of header interpretation and three examples of
header construction.  At the request of the optical community, the TAN
projection has been generalized with the addition of a distortion
function and an example is given of translating a DSS header into it.
There was also a minor correction to Eq. 45 for Airy's projection.  Some
material which should be common knowledge was removed to simplify the
paper slightly.  Some alternate and less useful forms of the projection
equations were also removed.  The graticules are now all drawn to scale.

Thanks,

Mark Calabretta (mcalabre at atnf.csiro.edu)
Eric W. Greisen (egreisen at nrao.edu)

From owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu  Tue Apr 20 10:02:49 1999
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Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1999 11:59:45 +0100
From: Peter Bunclark <psb at ast.cam.ac.uk>
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Subject: Re: wcs.ps and scs.ps
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Mike Nolan wrote:

> atmosphere.  It is usually
> approximated as sec(zenith angle), which is the only other case

I'd say ``it is usually calculated to high precision, often with a call to
slaAirmas()''.

Pete.

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Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1999 12:18:42 -0400
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Subject: Fverify for Version 100-2.0 of NASA FITS Standard
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     New FITS File Conformance Test Program

This is to announce the release of a new version of the FITS file
verification program called 'fverify' that tests any FITS file to see if it
conforms to the FITS Standard in every detail. This new version of fverify
has been completely rewritten by HEASARC programmer Ning Gan to check that
the FITS file meets every requirement in the newly released Version 100-2.0
of the NASA FITS Standard (available at http://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/).  A list
of all the error and warning conditions fverify will detect is attached at
the end of this message.

Fverify is now available as a stand-alone utility  program for most Unix
platforms from the FTOOLS Web site at 

   http://legacy.gsfc.nasa.gov/ftools/ftools_select.html

It will also be included in the next release of the FTOOLS software package
sometime later this year.  While fverify is designed to exhaustively check
every requirement or recommendation in the new FITS Standard, we cannot
guarantee that it will in fact detect every possible nonconformance.  We
would appreciate receiving reports of any FITS format errors that it does
not detect at ftoolshelp at athena.gsfc.nasa.gov.

  ERROR conditions reported by fverify:
  -------------------------------------

  - Header contains illegal ASCII character (outside ASCII 32-126)
  - Keyword name contains illegal character
  - Keyword value field has illegal format
  - Value and comment fields not separated by a slash character
  - END keyword not blank in columns 9 - 80
  - Required keywords out of order
  - Required keyword duplicated elsewhere in the header
  - Required or reserved keyword with wrong data type
  - Required or reserved keyword with value outside legal range
  - EXTEND not present in the primary array if there are extensions
  - BLOCKED, if present, not in the first 36 keywords in the primary
      array
  - BLANK is present when primary array or Image extension has
      BITPIX < 0
  - XTENSION, EXTNAME, EXTVER, or EXTLEVEL in the primary array
  - TFIELDS, TBCOLn, TFORMn, TSCALn, TZEROn, TNULLn, TTYPEn, TUNITn,
      TDISPn, TDIMn, or THEAP in the primary array or Image extension
  - SIMPLE, EXTEND, or BLOCKED in any extension
  - BSCALE, BZERO, BUNIT, BLANK, DATAMAX, DATAMIN, CTYPEn, CRPIXn,
      CROTAn, CRVALn or CDELTn in an ASCII or Binary table
  - TDIMn or THEAP in an ASCII table
  - TBCOLn in a Binary table
  - XTENSION, TFORMn, TDISPn or TDIMn value contains leading spaces
  - Index on any of the WCS keywords (CRPIXn, CRVALn, CDELTn, CROTAn
      and CTYPEn) greater than NAXIS
  - Index on any of the table column descriptor keywords (TTYPEn,
      TFORMn, etc.) greater than TFIELDS
  - TSCALn or TZEROn present for an ASCII, logical, or Bit column
  - In Binary tables, TNULLn for a column with other than B, I, or  J
      type
  - In Binary tables, THEAP exists and PCOUNT = 0
  - TDISPn with a value that is inconsistent with the column datatype
  - All data values in the image or table have a valid format
  - The number of elements in a row of a variable length array column
      is greater than the maximum number of elements given by TFORMn
  - A value in a variable length array has an address which lies
      outside the data heap
  - The header fill bytes, if any, not all blanks
  - The data file bytes, if any, not all blanks in ASCII tables or
      all zeros in any other type of HDU.
  - Any characters, if any, between defined ASCII table fields with an
      ASCII value > 127
  - Any extra bytes in the file beyond the end of the last HDU

  WARNING conditions reported by fverify:
  ---------------------------------------
    
  - SIMPLE = F
  - use of deprecated keywords BLOCKED or EPOCH    
  - 2 HDUS have identical EXTNAME, EXTVER, and EXTLEVEL values  
  - BSCALE = 0
  - TSCALEn = 0 
  - TNULL < 0 or TNULL > 255 for B column in a Binary table
  - TNULL < -32768 or TNULL > 32767 for I column in a Binary table
  - TFORMn = 'rAw' and r is not a multiple of w
  - DATE = 'dd/mm/yy' and  00 <= yy <= 09
  - duplicated  keyword (except COMMENT, HISTORY, blank, etc.)
  - column name (TTYPEn) does not start with a letter
  - column name has characters other than letter, digit and underscore
  - column names are not unique within the first 16 chars
  - calculated checksum inconsistent with CHECKSUM and DATASUM
  ---------------------------------------------------------------------

From owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu  Tue Apr 20 23:08:23 1999
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Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1999 20:25:05 -0400 (EDT)
From: Bill Cotton <bcotton at nrao.edu>
Message-Id: <199904210025.UAA22980 at gorilla.cv.nrao.edu>
To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu
CC: bcotton at gorilla.cv.nrao.edu
Subject: Re: Version 100-2.0 of NASA FITS Standard released
In-Reply-To: <199904121755.NAA02326 at iris.stsci.edu>
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   I note with dismay that this version of the NASA FITS standard
still tries to deprecate the FITS random groups format.  This format
is in widespread use in the radio interferometry community.  The
attempt to deprecate this format is in violation of the fundamental
principle of FITS, "once FITS, always FITS".  Clintonian weasel words
on the subject are not helpful.  I am forced to question the
responsiveness of the NASA committee to the non-NASA FITS community.

-Bill Cotton

From owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu  Sun Apr 25 14:59:41 1999
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To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu
Date: Fri, 23 Apr 1999 14:58:26 -0400
From: Peter Teuben <teuben at astro.umd.edu>
Message-ID: <3720C2D2.4744147D at astro.umd.edu>
Organization: Astronomy Department - University of Maryland
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References: <199904121755.NAA02326 at iris.stsci.edu> <199904210025.UAA22980 at gorilla.cv.nrao.edu>
Subject: Re: Version 100-2.0 of NASA FITS Standard released
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Having been on the original NOST-1 panel, and working with
FITS Random  Format files almost on a daily basis I've of course
also been weary about what "deprecate" really means. You can
even find a definition in the current NOST manual.

We (the panel) meant to tell the community that new data should
not be using this format, since "better" ones are available
(binary tables). However, existing ones should indeed fall under
the "once fits, always fits" chapter.

In an older version we defined it as:

"To express earnest disapproval of. This term is used to refer to   obsolete
structures that ought not to be used but remain valid."

However, there has been some discussion that the word "ought" in
that definition may be too strong.

I remind you that we deprecated 3 FITS features:

- random groups
- the BLOCKED keyword
- the EPOCH keyword 

but again, it remains true that old data will not be deprecated,
one will be able to read it. It's meant to refer to new data, but
does not disallow it, but may be frowned upon.

Bill Cotton wrote:

>    I note with dismay that this version of the NASA FITS standard
> still tries to deprecate the FITS random groups format.  This format
> is in widespread use in the radio interferometry community.  The
> attempt to deprecate this format is in violation of the fundamental
> principle of FITS, "once FITS, always FITS".  Clintonian weasel words
> on the subject are not helpful.  I am forced to question the
> responsiveness of the NASA committee to the non-NASA FITS community.
> 
> -Bill Cotton

peter

From owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu  Mon Apr 26 10:36:01 1999
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Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 09:27:48 -0400 (EDT)
From: Bill Cotton <bcotton at nrao.edu>
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Peter Teuben writes:
 > Having been on the original NOST-1 panel, and working with
 > FITS Random  Format files almost on a daily basis I've of course
 > also been weary about what "deprecate" really means. You can
 > even find a definition in the current NOST manual.
 > 
 > We (the panel) meant to tell the community that new data should
 > not be using this format, since "better" ones are available
 > (binary tables). However, existing ones should indeed fall under
 > the "once fits, always fits" chapter.
 > 
 > 
 > In an older version we defined it as:
 > 
 > "To express earnest disapproval of. This term is used to refer to   obsolete
 > structures that ought not to be used but remain valid."
 > 
 > However, there has been some discussion that the word "ought" in
 > that definition may be too strong.
 > 
 > 
 > I remind you that we deprecated 3 FITS features:
 > 
 > - random groups
 > - the BLOCKED keyword
 > - the EPOCH keyword 
 > 
 > but again, it remains true that old data will not be deprecated,
 > one will be able to read it. It's meant to refer to new data, but
 > does not disallow it, but may be frowned upon.
 > 
 > 
 > Bill Cotton wrote:
 > 
 > >    I note with dismay that this version of the NASA FITS standard
 > > still tries to deprecate the FITS random groups format.  This format
 > > is in widespread use in the radio interferometry community.  The
 > > attempt to deprecate this format is in violation of the fundamental
 > > principle of FITS, "once FITS, always FITS".  Clintonian weasel words
 > > on the subject are not helpful.  I am forced to question the
 > > responsiveness of the NASA committee to the non-NASA FITS community.
 > > 
 > > -Bill Cotton
 > 
 > 
 > peter
 > 

   This is yet a further redefinition of "deprecated".  My
understanding was that the weasel words were intended to apply to new
applications (projects), not new data.  Many new random groups FITS
files are generated daily and will for the foreseeable future.  
The BLOCKED keyword is largely irrelevant and EPOCH was a mistake, at
least in its intended usage.  Deprecation of random groups is a
denial of present reality. 

-Bill Cotton

From owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu  Mon Apr 26 10:37:23 1999
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Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 10:30:09 -0400 (EDT)
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From: Eric Greisen <egreisen at valen.cv.nrao.edu>
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Subject: Re: Version 100-2.0 of NASA FITS Standard released
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Peter Teuben writes:
 > Having been on the original NOST-1 panel, and working with
 > FITS Random  Format files almost on a daily basis I've of course
 > also been weary about what "deprecate" really means. You can
 > even find a definition in the current NOST manual.
 > 
 > We (the panel) meant to tell the community that new data should
 > not be using this format, since "better" ones are available
 > (binary tables). However, existing ones should indeed fall under
 > the "once fits, always fits" chapter.
 > 
 > 
 > In an older version we defined it as:
 > 
 > "To express earnest disapproval of. This term is used to refer to   obsolete
 > structures that ought not to be used but remain valid."
 > 
 > However, there has been some discussion that the word "ought" in
 > that definition may be too strong.
 > 
 > 
 > I remind you that we deprecated 3 FITS features:
 > 
 > - random groups
 > - the BLOCKED keyword
 > - the EPOCH keyword 
 > 
 > but again, it remains true that old data will not be deprecated,
 > one will be able to read it. It's meant to refer to new data, but
 > does not disallow it, but may be frowned upon.
 > 
 > 
 > Bill Cotton wrote:
 > 
 > >    I note with dismay that this version of the NASA FITS standard
 > > still tries to deprecate the FITS random groups format.  This format
 > > is in widespread use in the radio interferometry community.  The
 > > attempt to deprecate this format is in violation of the fundamental
 > > principle of FITS, "once FITS, always FITS".  Clintonian weasel words
 > > on the subject are not helpful.  I am forced to question the
 > > responsiveness of the NASA committee to the non-NASA FITS community.
 > > 
 > > -Bill Cotton
 > 
 > 

    The real problem is the word "deprecate" itself.  That word has
been given a meaning by the ANSI which has been used then with Fortran
and other languages (at least).  The word means that the deprecated
feature will be no longer supported at some future date.  I suspect
that we cannot use an arbitrary definition of the word which we make
up and spell out.  The word has a meaning to the standards business
and we do not mean that meaning.  I think we should find a new word.
The problem is that I do not know what that word is.  Does anyone
anywhere have a suggestion?

Thanks,
Eric W Greisen

From owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu  Tue Apr 27 08:17:27 1999
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Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 18:27:10 +0200
From: Lucio Chiappetti <lucio at ifctr.mi.cnr.it>
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On Mon, 26 Apr 1999, Eric Greisen wrote:

>  > "To express earnest disapproval of. This term is used to refer to   obsolete
>  > structures that ought not to be used but remain valid."
>  > 

>     The real problem is the word "deprecate" itself.  That word has
> been given a meaning by the ANSI which has been used then [...]
> and we do not mean that meaning.  I think we should find a new word.
> The problem is that I do not know what that word is.  Does anyone
> anywhere have a suggestion?

What about "discouraged" ?

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Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 10:44:26 +0100
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>

UNFITTED.

>
>     The real problem is the word "deprecate" itself.  That word has
> been given a meaning by the ANSI which has been used then with Fortran
> and other languages (at least).  The word means that the deprecated
> feature will be no longer supported at some future date.  I suspect
> that we cannot use an arbitrary definition of the word which we make
> up and spell out.  The word has a meaning to the standards business
> and we do not mean that meaning.  I think we should find a new word.
> The problem is that I do not know what that word is.  Does anyone
> anywhere have a suggestion?
>
> Thanks,
> Eric W Greisen

From owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu  Tue Apr 27 10:14:03 1999
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> >     The real problem is the word "deprecate" itself.  That word has
> > been given a meaning by the ANSI which has been used then [...]
> > and we do not mean that meaning.  I think we should find a new word.

I think "deprecate" is just fine.  It's an English word, not owned by
ANSI the last time I consulted the OED, and we can have it mean whatever
shade of disapproval we choose.

What I assume all we mean is that we are recommending to implementors of
new FITS-writing programs that they avoid using the feature.  The reasons
for deprecation are really a separate matter, but we should list a few
examples to encourage compliance.  (For example don't use feature A when
feature B works much better.)

If someone in a few years decides to write a program that reads FITS files,
and decides not to bother supporting one or more deprecated features, then
to my mind that's acceptable as long as they own up.  The program they've
written is a reader of a subset of valid FITS files; as long as they don't
try and pass it off as a completely universal FITS reader we surely have no
grounds for complaint.

Patrick Wallace
____________________________________________________________________________
Starlink Project Manager                        Internet:  ptw at star.rl.ac.uk
Rutherford Appleton Laboratory                       Tel:    +44-1235-445372
Chilton, Didcot, Oxon OX11 0QX, UK                   Fax:    +44-1235-446667
____________________________________________________________________________

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Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 09:15:49 -0400
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Eric Greisen wrote:
>     The real problem is the word "deprecate" itself.  That word
> has been given a meaning by the ANSI which has been used then
> with Fortran and other languages (at least).  The word means
> that the deprecated feature will be no longer supported at
> som> future date.  I suspect that we cannot use an arbitrary
> definition of the word which we make up and spell out.  The
> word has a meaning to the standards business and we do not
> mean that meaning.  I think we should find a new word. The
> problem is that I do not know what that word is.  Does anyone
> anywhere have a suggestion?

I second Lucio's "use is discouraged".  As an archival standard,
FITS *has* to continue to support every past legal format and
keyword.  The standard can also note that use of binary tables
format instead of random groups is encouraged for new projects.

-Doug Mink

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Patrick Wallace wrote:
> 
> > >     The real problem is the word "deprecate" itself.  That word has
> > > been given a meaning by the ANSI which has been used then [...]
> > > and we do not mean that meaning.  I think we should find a new word.
> 
> I think "deprecate" is just fine.  It's an English word, not owned by
> ANSI the last time I consulted the OED, and we can have it mean whatever
> shade of disapproval we choose.

I like Lucio Chiapetti's suggestion, "discouraged". For one, hate to
admit it, it is a word I understand :-)

Maren Purves, UKIRT

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Eric Greisen writes:
 >     The real problem is the word "deprecate" itself.  That word has
 > been given a meaning by the ANSI which has been used then with Fortran
 > and other languages (at least).  The word means that the deprecated
 > feature will be no longer supported at some future date..

The Fortran-90 committee *may* have used the word with that meaning
(but see below for evidence that they used a different word).
However, after searching the Web, I can find no reason to conclude
that the definition given in the quote above has been formally adopted
by ANSI itself.  Indeed, the available evidence (inconsistent usage of
the word by standards-committee-related personnel) suggests the contrary.

			       -=-=-=-

A good summary of the Fortran-90 situation is at this URL:

    http://www.nsc.liu.se/~boein/f77to90/a4.html#obsolescent

    "..the concept 'obsolescence' is introduced. This means that some
    constructs may be removed at the next change of Fortran.."

It clear that the Fortran-90 committee was serious; for example, see
the deleted features discussion for Fortran-95 at:

    http://www.nsc.liu.se/~boein/f77to90/f95.html#17.2

    "..Five features are deleted from Fortran 90.  1.real and double
    precision DO loop index variables 2.branching to END IF from an
    outer block 3.PAUSE statements 4.ASSIGN statements and assigned GO
    TO statements and the use of an assigned integer as a FORMAT
    specification 5.Hollerith editing in FORMAT.  These are all from
    the list of obsolescent features of Fortran 90 (but not the
    complete list).."

Please note that 'deprecate' per se does not appear in the above
texts; 'obsolescent' is used instead. I do not have access to the
official Fortran-90 standard, so I cannot check whether 'deprecate'
was used in it. If 'obsolescent' was used, then Fortran cannot be
cited in our discussions about use of the word 'deprecate' in the NOST
FITS standard.

			       -=-=-=-

I decided to try a Web search engine with the string "deprecate AND
ansi". My goal was to find examples of usage of 'deprecate' in
computer-standards discussions; I hoped that the precise meaning of
the word would be clear in context. For example, the page at URL

    http://www.uni-giessen.de/hrz/programmiersprachen/C/b.html

contains an extended discussion of the ANSI C standard. The word
'deprecate' appears once in the text, in this paragraph:

    "..The distinction between internal and external codes most needs
    emphasis with respect to new-line.  ANSI X3L2 (Codes and Character
    Sets) uses the term to refer to an external code used for
    information interchange whose display semantics specify a move to
    the next line.  Both ANSI X3L2 and ISO 646 deprecate the
    combination of the motion to the next line with a motion to the
    initial position on the line.  The C Standard, on the other hand,
    uses new-line to designate the end-of-line internal code
    represented by the escape sequence '\n'.  While this ambiguity is
    perhaps unfortunate, use of the term in the latter sense is nearly
    universal within the C community.  But the knowledge that this
    internal code has numerous external representations, depending
    upon operating system and medium, is equally widespread.."

This usage of 'deprecate' in an ANSI computer language standard context
definitely falls into the "to express disapproval of" category, not in
the "to be deleted in a future version of the standard" category.  I
also found several uses of 'deprecate' in discussions of C++:

    http://www.progsoc.uts.edu.au/~geldridg/cpp/cppcv3/sect4/index.html

    "..[Stroustrup 94] also voices the opinion that default int is
    bad. He had tried to make the type specifier explicit, but was
    forced to withdraw by users: 'I backed out the change. I don't
    think I had a choice. Allowing that implicit int is the source of
    many of the annoying problems with C++ grammar today. Note the
    pressure came from users, not management or arm-chair language
    experts. Finally, ten years later, the C++ ANSI/ISO standard
    committee has decided to deprecate implicit int.'.."

    http://www.progsoc.uts.edu.au/~geldridg/cpp/cppcv3/sect3/index.html

    "..[Stroustrup 94] indicates a desire to discard the C casts: 'I
    intended the new-style casts as a complete replacement for the
    (T)e notation. I proposed to deprecate (T)e ; that is, for the
    committee to give users warning that the (T)e notation would most
    likely not be part of a future revision of the C++ standard. ...
    However, that idea didn't gain a majority, so that cleanup of C++
    will probably never happen.'.."

So, in a discussion of the ANSI C standard the word is used with the
'discourage' meaning, while in at least one discussion of ANSI C++
'deprecate' is defined as 'to be deleted in the future'.

Another case I found is a review of ANSI X3J13 Common Lisp standards
debates at:

    http://www-cgi.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/ai-repository/ai/html/hyperspec/HyperSpec/Issues/iss149-writeup.html

    "..David Moon says: Seems okay, except that if we are going to
    deprecate these things, I would much rather just remove them.  You
    would surely argue that no significant program could possibly be
    depending on EVALHOOK, since it has no semantics, so there can't
    be a compatibility issue.  If we agree that something is a bad
    idea, I would rather remove it entirely unless there is a
    compelling compatibility reason to only deprecate it.  In fact
    even if some programs used EVALHOOK, I would still want to remove
    it, as I long ago ceased to believe in any fantasy of seamless
    compatibility between CLtL and ANSI CL.  But others might not
    agree with me there.."

Obviously the usage above implies disapproval, not deletion. But
consider another example which is discussing the same X3J13 debates:

    http://www2.camellia.org/cltl-html/clm/node141.html

    "..X3J13 voted in January 1989 (TEST-NOT-IF-NOT) to deprecate the use
    of :test-not keyword arguments and -if-not functions. This means
    that these features are very likely to be retained in the
    forthcoming standard but are regarded as candidates for removal in
    a future revision of the ANSI standard. X3J13 also voted in
    January 1989 (FUNCTION-COMPOSITION) to add the complement
    function, intended to reduce or eliminate the need for these
    deprecated features.  Time will tell. I note that many features in
    Fortran have been deprecated but very few indeed have actually
    been removed or altered incompatibly.."

So, in one discussion of ANSI Lisp 'deprecate' is used as 'discourage'
while in another discussion it is defined as 'candidate for removal'.

COBOL is an ANSI language; here is a usage in the 'Frequently Asked
Questions about COBOL' document at:

    http://obelix.unicamp.br/pub/FAQ/computer-lang/cobol-faq

    "..16. Contributors to the FAQ.  Many people have contributed to
    this FAQ in each of its iterations. In the past an ongoing list of
    these people have been included within the FAQ.  At this time, i
    am stopping this practice, although I ,in no way, want to
    deprecate all the work and input that these people have
    provided. I have continued to identify people whom I am quoting
    (directly or indirectly) and do still hope that everyone who has
    input for this document will continue to provide it.."

The implied meaning in the above case is roughly "discourage".

I am unsure whether Java is already in the ANSI standards process, but
I expect it will be eventually.  In the book "Java [1.1] AWT
Reference" (J.Zukowski, O'Reilly, 1997), on p.xvii, we find:

    "..Comments in the JDK source code indicate that the older method
    names have been 'deprecated', which means that you should consider
    the old names obsolete and avoid using them; they could disappear
    in a future release.."

			       -=-=-=-

In addition to computer languages, we could broaden the scope to
include discussions of networking standards. Consider RFC2130, at:

    http://info.internet.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc/files/rfc2130.txt 

    "..This report recommends the use of ISO 10646 as the default Coded
   Character Set, and UTF-8 as the default Character Encoding Scheme in
   the creation of new protocols or new version of old protocols which
   transmit text. These defaults do not deprecate the use of other
   character sets when and where they are needed; they are simply
   intended to provide guidance and a specification for
   interoperability.."

and the commentary document at:

    http://www.imib.med.tu-dresden.de/imib/Internet/Literatur/IPSec/draft-rogaway-ipsec-comments-00.txt

    "..As a general principle, since ALL that an ESP mechanism ought
   guarantee is privacy, it is NEVER useful to encrypt known text.
   Doing so increases the size of packets and the computational
   complexity of making them, while it provides no security benefit.
   RECOMMENDATION 3: Modify the architecture to forbid or deprecate
   the encryption of known headers.."

Both of the above usages imply "discourage".  I also found a usage in
documentation for the netCDF package at:

    http://dos-debian.kosnet.ru/doc/netcdf/CHANGES

    "..added the `-p fdigs,ddigs' option to ncdump.  This replaces and
    behaves like the (now deprecated and undocumented) `-d' option,
    except that it overrides any values specified by the `C_format'
    attribute for float or double values.  Made precisions specified
    by the `-p' or (now deprecated) `-d' options apply to float or
    double attributes as well as data values.."

Here it is clear that the deprecated feature remains supported but
will no longer be documented.

			       -=-=-=-

Finally, we can consult the Jargon File's 4.0.0 version (released 25
July 1996, published in cellulose fiber and carbon particles as 'The
New Hacker's Dictionary') at:

    http://www.fh-zwickau.de/~linux/info/jargon/jargon_19.html#SEC26

    deprecated /adj./ Said of a program or feature that is considered
    obsolescent and in the process of being phased out, usually in
    favor of a specified replacement. Deprecated features can,
    unfortunately, linger on for many years. This term appears with
    distressing frequency in standards documents when the committees
    writing the documents realize that large amounts of extant (and
    presumably happily working) code depend on the feature(s) that
    have passed out of favor.

Lest you think the above definition is definitive, compare this usage
from the same URL:

    dd /dee-dee/ /vt./ [Unix: from IBM JCL] Equivalent to cat or
    BLT. Originally the name of a Unix copy command with special
    options suitable for block-oriented devices; it was often used in
    heavy-handed system maintenance, as in "Let's dd the root
    partition onto a tape, then use the boot PROM to load it back on
    to a new disk". The Unix dd(1) was designed with a weird,
    distinctly non-Unixy keyword option syntax reminiscent of IBM
    System/360 JCL (which had an elaborate DD `Dataset Definition'
    specification for I/O devices); though the command filled a need,
    the interface design was clearly a prank. The jargon usage is now
    very rare outside Unix sites and now nearly obsolete even there,
    as dd(1) has been deprecated for a long time (though it has no
    exact replacement). The term has been displaced by BLT or simple
    English `copy'.

-Don

-- 
  Donald C. Wells      Scientist - GBT Project        dwells at nrao.edu
                    http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~dwells
  National Radio Astronomy Observatory                +1-804-296-0277
  520 Edgemont Road,   Charlottesville, Virginia       22903-2475 USA

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To: fitsbits at fits.cv.nrao.edu
Subject: WCS Paper II, revision
Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 11:44:29 +1000
From: Mark Calabretta <Mark.Calabretta at atnf.csiro.au>
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Thank you to those who responded to the call for comments on WCS Paper II,
"Representations of celestial coordinates in FITS".  A revised draft based
on this feedback and dated 1999/04/28 is now available from my home page

   http://www.atnf.csiro.au/people/mcalabre

or from Eric's ftp area (soon, check the date)

   ftp://ftp.cv.nrao.edu/NRAO-staff/egreisen.

The changes could probably best be described as fine tuning.  "diff -C 1"
output on the LaTeX file is appended (insignificant typesetting changes have
been removed from this output).  Changes were also made to correct keyword
nomenclature in Fig. 1 and to correctly identify the angle theta in Fig. 4.

There is still time to make further comments, particularly on Sect. 4.1.5,
Eqs. (40) & (41).

Mark Calabretta
ATNF

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*** ccs.tex	1999/04/20 04:19:14	1.13
--- ccs.tex	1999/04/28 00:04:00
***************
*** 576,578 ****
  the time of observation.  The new keyword takes preference over the old one if
! both are given.  Note that \EQUINOX{s} also applies to ecliptic as well as
  equatorial coordinates.
--- 576,578 ----
  the time of observation.  The new keyword takes preference over the old one if
! both are given.  Note that \EQUINOX{s} applies to ecliptic as well as to
  equatorial coordinates.
***************
*** 834,839 ****
  (ca.\,624-547\,{\sc b.c.}).  The stereographic and orthographic date to
! Hipparchus (ca.\,190-after 126\,{\sc b.c.}).}, is widely used in optical
  astronomy and was given its own code within the AIPS convention, namely
! \keyv{TAN}.  However, the \keyv{TAN} projection is here extended to include
! corrections for instrumental distortions and is covered separately in
  Sect.~\ref{sec:TAN}.  If a simple gnomonic projection is required it can be
--- 834,841 ----
  (ca.\,624-547\,{\sc b.c.}).  The stereographic and orthographic date to
! Hipparchus (ca.\,190-after 126\,{\sc b.c.}).} is widely used in optical
  astronomy and was given its own code within the AIPS convention, namely
! \keyv{TAN}\footnote{Referring to the dependence of $\Rt$ on the angular
! separation between the tangent point and field point, i.e. the native
! {\em co}-latitude.}.  However, the \keyv{TAN} projection is here extended to
! include corrections for instrumental distortions and is covered separately in
  Sect.~\ref{sec:TAN}.  If a simple gnomonic projection is required it can be
***************
*** 899,903 ****
  widely used in aperture synthesis radioastronomy and was given its own code
! within the AIPS convention, namely \keyv{SIN}.  Use of this projection code
! obviates the need to specify an infinite value as a parameter of \keyv{AZP}.
! In this case, Eq.~(\ref{eq:AZPRt}) becomes
  
--- 901,906 ----
  widely used in aperture synthesis radioastronomy and was given its own code
! within the AIPS convention, namely \keyv{SIN}\footnote{Similar etymology to
! \keyv{TAN}.}.  Use of this projection code obviates the need to specify an
! infinite value as a parameter of \keyv{AZP}.  In this case,
! Eq.~(\ref{eq:AZPRt}) becomes
  
***************
*** 1086,1108 ****
  high-precision with a measuring engine.  These plate coordinates are usually
! measured in $\mu$m rather than degrees.
  
! Astrometrists refer to the $(\xi,\eta)$ coordinates obtained by application of
! the distortion function as {\em standard} coordinates.  They correspond to
! projection plane coordinates for a non-distorted projection, usually gnomonic
! or zenithal equidistant.  We will confine ourselves here to the gnomonic case
! since the field sizes of interest are sufficiently small, typically less than
! $6\degr \times 6\degr$, that the distortion function itself can account for
! the difference between it and other projections.
! 
! In the current treatment we require that $(\xi,\eta)$ be measured in degrees.
! However, in order to more easily accomodate traditional astrometric practices
! and facilitate translation of existing plate measurements, we recommend but do
! not require that $(x,y)$ be measured in degrees.  This is possible because the
! linear terms of the distortion function provide an opportunity to rescale
! $(\xi,\eta)$ appropriately.  The distortion function effectively becomes an
! attachment of the the linear transformation matrix rather than part of the
! projection itself.  Ideally the linear terms of the distortion function should
! define an identity transformation with translation, rotation, skewness and
! scale handled solely by Eq.~(\ref{eq:ijCDxy}).  In that case the distortion
! function becomes a second-order correction.
  
--- 1089,1106 ----
  high-precision with a measuring engine.  These plate coordinates are usually
! measured in $\mu$m or mm rather than degrees.
  
! The {\em standard} coordinates, $(\xi,\eta)$, correspond to projection plane
! coordinates for a gnomonic projection (Murray \cite{kn:Mu}).  Standard
! coordinates are usually measured in radians but in the current treatment we
! require that $(\xi,\eta)$ be measured in degrees.  However, in order to more
! easily accomodate traditional astrometric practices and facilitate translation
! of existing plate measurements, we recommend but do not require that $(x,y)$
! be measured in degrees.  This is possible because the linear terms of the
! distortion function provide an opportunity to rescale $(\xi,\eta)$
! appropriately.  The distortion function effectively becomes an attachment of
! the the linear transformation matrix rather than part of the projection
! itself.  Ideally the linear terms of the distortion function should define an
! identity transformation with translation, rotation, skewness and scale handled
! solely by Eq.~(\ref{eq:ijCDxy}).  In that case the distortion function becomes
! a second-order correction.
  
***************
*** 1396,1403 ****
  
! Lambert's\footnote{Johann Heinrich Lambert (1728-1777) formulated and gave his
! name to a number of important projections as listed in
! Table~\ref{ta:aliases}.} equal area projection, the case with $\lambda = 1$,
! is illustrated in Fig.~\ref{fig:CEA}.  It shows the extreme compression of the
! parallels of latitude at the poles typical of all cylindrical equal area
! projections.
  
--- 1394,1401 ----
  
! Lambert's\footnote{The mathematician, astronomer and physicist Johann Heinrich
! Lambert (1728-1777) formulated and gave his name to a number of important
! projections as listed in Table~\ref{ta:aliases}.} equal area projection, the
! case with $\lambda = 1$, is illustrated in Fig.~\ref{fig:CEA}.  It shows the
! extreme compression of the parallels of latitude at the poles typical of all
! cylindrical equal area projections.
  
***************
*** 1991,1993 ****
  and use the fact that for a cone tangent to the sphere at latitude $\theta_1$
! as shown in Fig.~\ref{fig:COP} then $R_{\theta_1} = \rd\cot\theta_1$.
  
--- 1989,1991 ----
  and use the fact that for a cone tangent to the sphere at latitude $\theta_1$
! as shown in Fig.~\ref{fig:COP} we have $R_{\theta_1} = \rd\cot\theta_1$.
  
***************
*** 2653,2658 ****
  
! However, FITS-writers should never mix \CDELT{i} or \CROTA{j} together with
! the new keyword values.  We make this requirement primarily to minimize
! confusion.  However, there is the practical case described in
! Sect.~\ref{sec:AITGLSMER} where the presence of \CDELT{j} header cards
  distinguishes between the old and new interpretations of the \keyv{AIT},
--- 2651,2657 ----
  
! Modern FITS-writers must not attempt to help older interpreters by mixing
! \CDELT{i} or \CROTA{j} together with the new keyword values (assuming the
! \CD{j}{is} matrix is amenable to such translation).  We make this requirement
! primarily to minimize confusion although there is the practical case described
! in Sect.~\ref{sec:AITGLSMER} where the presence of \CDELT{j} header cards
  distinguishes between the old and new interpretations of the \keyv{AIT},
***************
*** 2833,2839 ****
  optical telescopes is closer to a gnomonic (\keyv{TAN}) projection.  On the
! other hand, the optics of the telescope used for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
! produce a cylindrical perspective projection.  Similarly a map of the surface
! of the moon as it appears from Earth requires a zenithal perspective
! (\keyv{AZP}) projection with $\mu = -60$.  Likewise for spacecraft generated
! images of distant moons and planets.
  
--- 2832,2838 ----
  optical telescopes is closer to a gnomonic (\keyv{TAN}) projection.  On the
! other hand, the great circle scanning technique of the the Sloan Digital Sky
! Survey produce a cylindrical projection.  Similarly a map of the surface of
! the moon as it appears from Earth requires a zenithal perspective (\keyv{AZP})
! projection with $\mu \approx -60$.  Likewise for spacecraft generated images
! of distant moons and planets.
  
***************
*** 2915,2917 ****
  \keyv{STG}, \keyv{ARC}, \keyv{ZEA}, \keyv{CAR}, \keyv{MER}, \keyv{BON},
! \keyv{PCO}, \keyv{GLS}, \keyv{AIT}.  The following are scaled true at the
  reference point for the particular conditions indicated: \keyv{TAN}
--- 2915,2917 ----
  \keyv{STG}, \keyv{ARC}, \keyv{ZEA}, \keyv{CAR}, \keyv{MER}, \keyv{BON},
! \keyv{PCO}, \keyv{SFL}, \keyv{AIT}.  The following are scaled true at the
  reference point for the particular conditions indicated: \keyv{TAN}
***************
*** 3106,3109 ****
        \verb+CD1_1A  =               -0.005 / Transformation matrix element+ \\
!       \verb+CD1_2A  =              0.00001 / Transformation matrix element+ \\
!       \verb+CD2_1A  =              0.00001 / Transformation matrix element+ \\
        \verb+CD2_2A  =                0.005 / Transformation matrix element+ \\
--- 3106,3109 ----
        \verb+CD1_1A  =               -0.005 / Transformation matrix element+ \\
!       \verb+CD1_2A  =              0.00002 / Transformation matrix element+ \\
!       \verb+CD2_1A  =             -0.00001 / Transformation matrix element+ \\
        \verb+CD2_2A  =                0.005 / Transformation matrix element+ \\
***************
*** 3358,3360 ****
  $\phi\sub{p}$ to give $(\ell,b)$ in terms of $(\phi,\theta)$.  This is easy
! because we know $\ell\sub{p}=90\degr$ and the simple special case
  Eqs.~(\ref{eq:nat2std90}) apply so
--- 3354,3356 ----
  $\phi\sub{p}$ to give $(\ell,b)$ in terms of $(\phi,\theta)$.  This is easy
! because we know $b\sub{p}=90\degr$ and the simple special case
  Eqs.~(\ref{eq:nat2std90}) apply so
***************
*** 3404,3406 ****
  \noindent
! Equations~(\ref{eq:nat2stdm90}) apply for $\ell\sub{p}=-90\degr$ so
  
--- 3400,3402 ----
  \noindent
! Equations~(\ref{eq:nat2stdm90}) apply for $b\sub{p}=-90\degr$ so
  
***************
*** 3597,3599 ****
  approximation since typically $B_1 \approx A_1$.  On the other hand, setting
! $\lambda = 1$ preserves $(x,y)$ as plate coordinates measured in mm.
  
--- 3593,3596 ----
  approximation since typically $B_1 \approx A_1$.  On the other hand, setting
! $\lambda = 1$ preserves $(x,y)$ as plate coordinates measured in mm.  The
! choice will be left open here.
  
***************
*** 3690,3693 ****
     & \keyw{PV1\_14} &=& a_{14} &=&                                 0 \, , \\
!    & \keyw{PV1\_15} &=& a_{15} &=&                                 0 \, , \\
!    & \keyw{PV1\_16} &=& a_{16} &=&                                 0 \, .
  \end{array}
--- 3687,3689 ----
     & \keyw{PV1\_14} &=& a_{14} &=&                                 0 \, , \\
!    & \keyw{PV1\_15} &=& a_{15} &=&                                 0 \, .
  \end{array}
***************
*** 3714,3717 ****
     & \keyw{PV2\_14} &=& b_{14} &=&                                 0 \, , \\
!    & \keyw{PV2\_15} &=& b_{15} &=&                                 0 \, , \\
!    & \keyw{PV2\_16} &=& b_{16} &=&                                 0 \, .
  \end{array}
--- 3710,3712 ----
     & \keyw{PV2\_14} &=& b_{14} &=&                                 0 \, , \\
!    & \keyw{PV2\_15} &=& b_{15} &=&                                 0 \, .
  \end{array}
***************
*** 3792,3793 ****
--- 3787,3803 ----
  
! Most optical telescopes are better described by the \keyv{TAN} projection.  In
! this case the only difference in the header would be
  
! \noindent
! \begin{eqnarray*}
!    \keyw{CTYPE2}  & = & \keyv{'RA---TAN'} \, , \\
!    \keyw{CTYPE3}  & = & \keyv{'DEC--TAN'} \, , \\
! \end{eqnarray*}
  
! \noindent
! Verifying it with the same values as before yields the same $(s,x,y)$ and thus
! the same wavelength.  From Eqs.~(\ref{eq:azrt}), (\ref{eq:azphi}) and
! (\ref{eq:GNORt}) we get $(\phi,\theta) = (90\degr,89\fdg4314076)$, the offset
! of 2046\farcs933 differing by only 67~mas.  The right ascension and
! declination are $(\alpha,\delta) = (150\fdg3449926,-34\fdg5070956)$.
  
***************
*** 4303,4305 ****
  described in this paper.  One, Mollweide's, even requires solution of a
! transcentental equation for the forward equations.  However, these do not
  give rise to any particular difficulties.
--- 4314,4316 ----
  described in this paper.  One, Mollweide's, even requires solution of a
! transcendental equation for the forward equations.  However, these do not
  give rise to any particular difficulties.
***************
*** 4355,4357 ****
        Sinusoidal             & \keyv{SFL} \\
!          \In Global sinusoid \\
           \In Mercator equal-area \\
--- 4366,4368 ----
        Sinusoidal             & \keyv{SFL} \\
!          \In Global sinusoid (\keyv{GLS}) \\
           \In Mercator equal-area \\
***************
*** 4500,4501 ****
--- 4511,4515 ----
  
+ \bibitem[1983]{kn:Mu} Murray, C. A., 1983, Vectorial Astrometry,
+    Adam Hilger Ltd., Bristol.
+ 
  \bibitem[1976]{kn:OL} O'Neill, E. M., Laubscher, R. E., 1976,

From owner-fitsbits at kochab.cv.nrao.edu  Wed Apr 28 15:43:07 1999
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Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 09:23:49 -0400 (EDT)
From: Bill Cotton <bcotton at nrao.edu>
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To: Steve Allen <sla at ucolick.org>
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Subject: Re: Version 100-2.0 of NASA FITS Standard released
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Steve Allen writes:
 > On Mon 1999-04-26T10:36:23 -0400, Bill Cotton hath writ:
 > >    This is yet a further redefinition of "deprecated".  My
 > > understanding was that the weasel words were intended to apply to new
 > > applications (projects), not new data.  Many new random groups FITS
 > > files are generated daily and will for the foreseeable future.
 > > The BLOCKED keyword is largely irrelevant and EPOCH was a mistake, at
 > > least in its intended usage.  Deprecation of random groups is a
 > > denial of present reality.
 > 
 > Dr. Cotton,
 > 
 > The discussion could be more focussed it you would make it clear
 > whether you object to the word or the concept of deprecation.
 > 
 > For example, I think it would help to know whether you would object to
 > a longwinded "Prithee do not employ this for any purpose which does
 > not already use it".
 > 

   I object only to the term "deprecate" which I interprete as meaning
"likely to be disallowed".  I am certainly no fan of random groups and
was part of an effort to get it replaced in the radio community by a
tables-based scheme. Unfortunately, this effort largely failed.  The
radio community isn't in a position to make this sort of change for
the foreseeable future as most working software is on minimal (or
less) life support.  On the other hand, discouraging use of random
groups in new applications is entirely appropriate; I would have no
problem with your wording or something of this nature. 

   A common current practice is for radio telescopes to produce raw
data in binary tables format but processed interferometer data is
almost always archived and interchanged between packages in random
groups format.  I object to even potentially disallowing a working
format while it's still being actively used.

   The question is how to express disaproval of the usage of random
groups in future applications, if that is indeed the intent.  Don
Wells' tome on "deprecate" illustrates the ambiguity of the term in
common usage.  A simple phrase like "use discouraged in future
applications" (or even the suggestion above) uses only words whose
meaning is relatively unambiguous.  

-Bill Cotton

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From: Eric Greisen <egreisen at valen.cv.nrao.edu>
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Subject: updated wcs papers
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All three papers on wcs have been updated today at my site

     ftp://ftp.cv.nrao.edu/NRAO-staff/egreisen

The ccs.ps reflects Mark's recent changes.  wcs.ps was changed to fix
the nomenclature in Figure 1.  Typos in scs.ps were fixed, the
reminder of which symbol is CRVALk was placed everywhere, a comment on
the changes since Wells, Greisen, Harten was added, units for
RESTFREWQ and RESTWAVE were restricted so that we don't have to have a
units keyword for them, wording in Section 4 was expanded and
clarified, OBS-LONG really means observation not observatory (et al),
a comment disassociating the OBS- keywords from real geodesy was
added, and there will probably be a bit more in the next few minutes.

Please read these.  Votes will be taken sometime soon - at ADASS if
not sooner!  Many thanks to Steve Allen and Pat Wallace for all their
comments.

Eric Greisen