Representations of celestial coordinates in FITS
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In Paper I, Greisen & Calabretta ([CITE]) describe a generalized method for assigning physical coordinates to FITS image pixels. This paper implements this method for all spherical map projections likely to be of interest in astronomy. The new methods encompass existing informal FITS spherical coordinate conventions and translations from them are described. Detailed examples of header interpretation and construction are given.
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Header sections store essential metadata as keyword/value pairs, including observational parameters, processing history, WCS information, and flux calibration.
“Critically, the header sections store essential metadata as keyword / value pairs. This includes observational parameters (telescope telemetry, instrument configuration, exposure time, filters), processing history (calibration steps, software versions), and arguably most importantly, the World Coordinate System (WCS) information (Greisen and Calabretta, 2002; Calabretta and Greisen, 2002) and flux”
From A high-throughput AES-GCM implementation on GPUs for secure, policy-based access to massive astronomical catalogs (2026) · cites this paper as Calabretta and Greisen, 2002
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Cites
Schlegel, D. J., Finkbeiner, D. P., & Davis, M. (1998) · The Astrophysical Journal · doi:10.1086/305772 · Cited by 15,126 · see citing works
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Research works printed but not linked: 4
- Brouw, W. N. 1971, Ph.D. Thesis, Sterrenwacht, Leiden
- IAU, 1998, Proceedings of the Twenty-Third General Assembly, Kyoto 1997, Transactions of the IAU, vol. XXIII-B Jones, M. H. 1993, Observatory, 113, 213
- Snyder, J. P. 1993, Flattening the Earth (University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London)
- Thompson, A. R., Moran, J. W., & Swenson, G. W. 1986, Interferometry and Synthesis in Radio Astronomy (J. Wiley, New York, USA)
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GALAXY CLUSTERS DISCOVERED WITH A SUNYAEV-ZEL'DOVICH EFFECT SURVEY
Staniszewski, Z., Ade, P. A. R., Aird, K. A., Benson, B. A., Bleem, L. E., Carlstrom, J. E., Chang, C. L., Cho, H.-M., Crawford, T. M., Crites, A. T., et al. (2009) · The Astrophysical Journal · doi:10.1088/0004-637x/701/1/32 · Cited by 322 · see citing works
Photometric redshifts from SDSS images using a convolutional neural network
Pasquet, J., Bertin, E., Treyer, M., Arnouts, S., & Fouchez, D. (2019) · Astronomy & Astrophysics · doi:10.1051/0004-6361/201833617 · Cited by 197 · see citing works
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Di Teodoro, E. M., McClure-Griffiths, N. M., Lockman, F. J., Denbo, S. R., Endsley, R., Ford, H. A., & Harrington, K. (2018) · The Astrophysical Journal · doi:10.3847/1538-4357/aaad6a · Cited by 79 · see citing works
Investigating interoperability of the LSST data management software stack with Astropy
Jenness, T., Bosch, J., Owen, R., Parejko, J., Sick, J., Swinbank, J., de Val-Borro, M., Dubois-Felsmann, G., Lim, K.-T., Lupton, R. H., et al. (2016) · SPIE Proceedings · doi:10.1117/12.2231313 · Cited by 14 · see citing works
Lemes-Perera, S., R. Alarcon, M., Caballero-Gil, P., & Serra-Ricart, M. (2026) · Astronomy and Computing · doi:10.1016/j.ascom.2026.101153 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
- Authors
- Calabretta, M. R., & Greisen, E. W.
- Affiliations
- Australia Telescope National Facility (AU)
- National Radio Astronomy Observatory (US)
- ORCID
- Greisen, E. W.
- Venue
- Astronomy & Astrophysics
- Publisher
- EDP Sciences
- Published
- 2002-11-18
- Volume
- 395
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 1077-1122
- ISSN
- 0004-6361 (ISSN-L)
- 1432-0746
- OpenAlex
- W2156099691
- Cited by
- 431
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 20 · 2025: 22 · 2024: 14 · 2023: 18 · 2022: 17 · 2021: 12 · 2020: 22 · 2019: 22 · 2018: 23 · 2017: 21 · 2016: 25 · 2015: 30 · 2014: 31 · 2013: 13 · 2012: 22
- FWCI
- 16.87
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- public-domain
- Locations
- Astronomy and Astrophysics (publishedVersion, public-domain)
- arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
- Springer Link (Chiba Institute of Technology) (submittedVersion, public-domain)
- arXiv (Cornell University)
- Funders
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- Space Telescope Science Institute
- Goddard Space Flight Center
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Instrumentation › Astronomy and Astrophysical Research
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Computational Mechanics › Astronomical Observations and Instrumentation
- Social Sciences › Geography, Planning and Development › Historical Geography and Cartography
- Keywords
- FITS, celestial coordinates, coordinate mapping, FITS header, astronomical data formats
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