[Aavso-photometry] FITS Keyword standard

[Dave Lane]

arne wrote:
> The standard data submission formats will be released about January 14.
> I then will be spending the next week finishing the comparison star
> database update, and then perhaps I can start a dialog on FITS with
> the vendors.

Hi Arne,

Some of us are writing our own software and are not 'vendors' in the 
traditional sense, but still want our files to be "compliant". Don't 
forget about us :-)

I participated some 10 years ago in getting SBIG to fix problems with 
their early DOS based software's fits output. Part of the problem is 
that it is not always easy to find out what the professionals want/need 
in terms of fits headers.

Last year when I was working on my automated imaging and photometry 
pipeline I wanted add relevant keywords during imaging and processing, 
but it was not always obvious what the optional keywords should be and 
how they should be formatted.

For example, I even found that sometimes the sign was inconsistent for 
keywords like SITELONG and in other cases keys have been have been 
represented as a real value or the string equivalent of hours, min, sec.

The standard that MaxIM uses is: 
http://www.sbig.com/pdffiles/SBFITSEXT_1r0.pdf

It is surprising to hear that SBIG images use EXPOSURE when the standard 
calls for EXPTIME (MaxIM includes both)

Anyway, not meaning to start this dicussion now! --- Dave