The FITS Tape Formats: Flexible Image Transport Systems:
Abstract
The basic FITS format for the interchange of digital array data was first described in 1979 and is now in use by a wide variety of astronomical institutions. Since the original format was inefficient for use with groups of small arrays, we have now proposed an extension to FITS which supports "arrays" which are irregularly gridded in one or more of the coordinate axes. These formats provide a simple but powerful mechanism for the unambiguous transmission not only of binary image data but also of a virtually unlimited number of auxiliary parameters that may be associated with the data.
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The vast majority of astronomical image data adheres to the FITS standard.
“The vast majority of astronomical image data, from groundbased telescopes to space missions, adheres to the Flexible Image Transport System (FITS) standard (Greisen et al., 1980; Wells et al., 1981; Ponz et al., 1994; Iau Fits Working Group, 2016).”
From A high-throughput AES-GCM implementation on GPUs for secure, policy-based access to massive astronomical catalogs (2026) · cites this paper as Greisen et al., 1980
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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
- Greisen, E. W., Wells, D. C., & Harten, R. H.
- Affiliations
- National Radio Astronomy Observatory (US)
- Kitt Peak National Observatory (US)
- Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (NL)
- ORCID
- Greisen, Eric W.
- Venue
- SPIE Proceedings
- Publisher
- SPIE
- Published
- 1980-11-21
- Volume
- 0264
- Pages
- 298-300
- ISSN
- 0277-786X (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2022680769
- Cited by
- 15
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2022: 3 · 2019: 1 · 2015: 7 · 2014: 2
- FWCI
- 0.00
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Radio Astronomy Observatory
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Instrumentation › Astronomy and Astrophysical Research
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Computational Mechanics › Astronomical Observations and Instrumentation
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies
- Keywords
- FITS, auxiliary parameter
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