From dwells at azalea.cx.nrao.edu Tue Mar 24 19:57:00 1992 X-VM-Message-Order: (2 6 4 3 9 10 8 5 7 11 12 19 17 15 13 14 20 16 18 21 22 23 24 27 28 26 25 29 31 32 33 34 35 30 1) X-VM-Summary-Format: "%n %*%a %-17.17F %-3.3m %2d %4l/%-5c %I\"%s\"\n" X-VM-Labels: nil Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1611" "Sat" "14" "March" "1992" "17:56:28" "GMT" "Don Wells" "dwells at azalea.cx.nrao.edu " "<4879223 at toto.iv>" "35" "Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?" "^From:" nil nil "3" "1992031417:56:28" "Unix based FITS table browsers?" (number " " mark " Don Wells Mar 14 35/1611 " thread-indent "\"Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?\"\n") nil] nil) X-VM-VHeader: ("Resent-" "From:" "Sender:" "To:" "Apparently-To:" "Cc:" "Subject:" "Date:") nil X-VM-Bookmark: 31 Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits In-Reply-To: dirk at spacsun.rice.edu's message of Fri, 13 Mar 1992 21: 15:58 GMT Organization: National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Charlottesville, VA. From: dwells at azalea.cx.nrao.edu (Don Wells) Subject: Re: Unix based FITS table browsers? Date: Sat, 14 Mar 1992 17:56:28 GMT In article <1992Mar13.211558.5133 at rice.edu> dirk at spacsun.rice.edu (Dirk Valk) writes: DV> "... Does anyone know where I can lay hands on a UNIX based DV> program that will let me manipulate, search and extract subsets DV> of FITS tables? ..." Dirk wants the program to be able to read FITS files directly from a CD-ROM, without copying to disk. I am unaware of any Unix-based code that will do this. If someone out there wants to work on the problem, I suggest that the best approach would be to code the application in Lisp under GNU Emacs. The resulting application would be able to display/manipulate FITS tables on local disk as well as CD-ROM, and would be portable to environments ranging from DOS to VMS VAXen to Unicos Crays as well as essentially *all* Unix boxes, because GNU Emacs implementations exist in all of these environments, and Lisp code is portable to all of them. The application would operate under X-windows in workstation environments. On workstations Emacs windows can utilize a million pixels or more, permitting examination of many columns and many rows. The programming and window management environment of GNU Emacs is rich, much like an operating system. There are existing applications coded in Lisp which would be a rich source of ideas for coding the application. Any takers? -- Donald C. Wells Associate Scientist dwells at nrao.edu National Radio Astronomy Observatory +1-804-296-0277 520 Edgemont Road Fax= +1-804-296-0278 Charlottesville, Virginia 22903-2475 USA 78:31.1W, 38:02.2N From cflatter at nrao.edu Tue Mar 24 19:57:20 1992 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1392" "Sun" "15" "March" "1992" "22:22:35" "GMT" "Chris Flatters" "cflatter at nrao.edu " "<657321 at toto.iv>" "31" "Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?" "^From:" nil nil "3" "1992031522:22:35" "Unix based FITS table browsers?" (number " " mark " Chris Flatters Mar 15 31/1392 " thread-indent "\"Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?\"\n") nil] nil) Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Reply-To: cflatter at nrao.edu Organization: NRAO From: cflatter at nrao.edu (Chris Flatters) Subject: Re: Unix based FITS table browsers? Date: Sun, 15 Mar 1992 22:22:35 GMT In article 92Mar14125628 at azalea.cx.nrao.edu, dwells at azalea.cx.nrao.edu (Don Wells) writes: >In article <1992Mar13.211558.5133 at rice.edu> dirk at spacsun.rice.edu >(Dirk Valk) writes: > > DV> "... Does anyone know where I can lay hands on a UNIX based > DV> program that will let me manipulate, search and extract subsets > DV> of FITS tables? ..." > >Dirk wants the program to be able to read FITS files directly from a >CD-ROM, without copying to disk. I am unaware of any Unix-based code >that will do this. > >If someone out there wants to work on the problem, I suggest that the >best approach would be to code the application in Lisp under GNU >Emacs. If the tables are ASCII tables then you should be able to knock something together fairly easily with PERL. If you have binary tables then both PERL and emacs LISP are going to have problems. A FITS table browser is an interesting idea. I'm going to think about that for a bit (not to be taken as a guarantee that I'll actually do anything it). ============================================================================== Chris Flatters | cflatter at nrao.edu National Radio Astronomy Observatory | ============================================================================== Desperation is the raw material of drastic change --- W. S. Burroughs ============================================================================== From dirk at spacsun.rice.edu Tue Mar 24 19:57:24 1992 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1316" "Mon" "16" "March" "1992" "16:31:31" "GMT" "Dirk Valk" "dirk at spacsun.rice.edu " "<4390404 at toto.iv>" "26" "Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?" "^From:" nil nil "3" "1992031616:31:31" "Unix based FITS table browsers?" (number " " mark " Dirk Valk Mar 16 26/1316 " thread-indent "\"Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?\"\n") nil] nil) Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Reply-To: dirk at spacsun.rice.edu (Dirk Valk) Organization: Dept. of Space Physics, Rice University, Houston TX From: dirk at spacsun.rice.edu (Dirk Valk) Subject: Re: Unix based FITS table browsers? Date: Mon, 16 Mar 1992 16:31:31 GMT In article , dwells at azalea.cx.nrao.edu (Don Wells) writes: |> In article <1992Mar13.211558.5133 at rice.edu> dirk at spacsun.rice.edu |> (Dirk Valk) writes: |> |> DV> "... Does anyone know where I can lay hands on a UNIX based |> DV> program that will let me manipulate, search and extract subsets |> DV> of FITS tables? ..." |> |> Dirk wants the program to be able to read FITS files directly from a |> CD-ROM, without copying to disk. I am unaware of any Unix-based code |> that will do this. |> Is this any different than simply browsing a FITS file that isn't on CD-ROM? When you mount the CD it's directories can be traversed like a normal file structure. I was under the impression that the mounted CD 'looked' just like files on the main hard drive to the Sun OS. As such, you wouldn't need a FITS browser that was specifically tailored for reading the CD-ROM, right? Please correct me if I'm wrong -- we're a little out of my normal expertise. -- : Dirk Valk |"And if it doesn't work out, : : Rice Univeristy | There'll never be any doubt, : : dirk at spacsun.rice.edu | That the pleasure was worth all the pain." : : Space Physics & Astro.| - Jimmy Buffett : From dwells at azalea.cx.nrao.edu Tue Mar 24 19:57:31 1992 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1074" "Mon" "16" "March" "1992" "18:51:40" "GMT" "Don Wells" "dwells at azalea.cx.nrao.edu " "<1062490 at toto.iv>" "22" "Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?" "^From:" nil nil "3" "1992031618:51:40" "Unix based FITS table browsers?" (number " " mark " Don Wells Mar 16 22/1074 " thread-indent "\"Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?\"\n") nil] nil) Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits In-Reply-To: dirk at spacsun.rice.edu's message of Mon, 16 Mar 1992 16: 31:31 GMT Organization: National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Charlottesville, VA. From: dwells at azalea.cx.nrao.edu (Don Wells) Subject: Re: Unix based FITS table browsers? Date: Mon, 16 Mar 1992 18:51:40 GMT In article <1992Mar16.163131.12036 at rice.edu> dirk at spacsun.rice.edu (Dirk Valk) writes: In article , dwells at azalea.cx.nrao.edu (Don Wells) writes: |> Dirk wants the program to be able to read FITS files directly from a |> CD-ROM, without copying to disk... Is this any different than simply browsing a FITS file that isn't on CD-ROM? No. My wording was misleading; for "copying to disk" read "converting to internal format on disk". As you pointed out in your original posting, IRAF/ST-SDAS, MIDAS, AIPS, etc., have table manipulation software that works on their respective internal table formats, and the FITS file must be converted first. Lee Brotzmann's browser for DOS works on FITS files directly, either on CD-ROM or disk. -- Donald C. Wells Associate Scientist dwells at nrao.edu National Radio Astronomy Observatory +1-804-296-0277 520 Edgemont Road Fax= +1-804-296-0278 Charlottesville, Virginia 22903-2475 USA 78:31.1W, 38:02.2N From landsman at stars.gsfc.nasa.gov-286-3625) Tue Mar 24 19:57:43 1992 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["851" "Mon" "16" "March" "1992" "01:31:00" "GMT" "301" "landsman at stars.gsfc.nasa.gov (Wayne Landsman -286-3625)" "<3143995 at toto.iv>" "21" "Double Precision FITS keyword values" "^From:" nil nil "3" "1992031601:31:00" "Double Precision FITS keyword values" (number " " mark " 301 Mar 16 21/851 " thread-indent "\"Double Precision FITS keyword values\"\n") nil] nil) Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.4-b1 Nntp-Posting-Host: stars.gsfc.nasa.gov Organization: NASA/GSFC-Laboratory for Astronomy and Solar Physics From: landsman at stars.gsfc.nasa.gov (Wayne Landsman (301)-286-3625) Subject: Double Precision FITS keyword values Date: Mon, 16 Mar 1992 01:31:00 GMT Section 5.3 of the FITS/NOST manual discusses the allowed fixed formats for the value of a FITS keyword. Apparently, double precision values are not allowed, since the full 64 bit precision cannot be specified within columns 11-30. (But 20 characters IS sufficient to specify values that are more precise than can be expressed by floating point.) This prompts a couple of related questions: (1) What is the best way to encode a double precision FITS keyword value? (2) If a FITS reader encounters a numeric value with too many digits to be expressed as floating point, should it convert this value to double precision? My FITS reader currently converts a FITS header value to double precision if it contains more than 8 numerals. Thanks for any comments on this. Wayne Landsman landsman at stars.gsfc.nasa.gov (301)-286-3625 From pence at heawk1.gsfc.nasa.gov Tue Mar 24 19:57:48 1992 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2241" "Mon" "16" "March" "1992" "18:15:13" "GMT" " William Pence" "pence at heawk1.gsfc.nasa.gov " "<7853551 at toto.iv>" "42" "Re: Double Precision FITS keyword values" "^From:" nil nil "3" "1992031618:15:13" "Double Precision FITS keyword values" (number " " mark " William Pence Mar 16 42/2241 " thread-indent "\"Re: Double Precision FITS keyword values\"\n") nil] nil) Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Nntp-Posting-Host: heawk1.gsfc.nasa.gov Organization: Goddard Space Flight Center From: pence at heawk1.gsfc.nasa.gov ( William Pence) Subject: Re: Double Precision FITS keyword values Date: Mon, 16 Mar 1992 18:15:13 GMT landsman at stars.gsfc.nasa.gov (Wayne Landsman (301)-286-3625) wrote: >Section 5.3 of the FITS/NOST manual discusses the allowed fixed formats >for the value of a FITS keyword. Apparently, double precision values >are not allowed, since the full 64 bit precision cannot be specified >?within columns 11-30. (But 20 characters IS sufficient to specify values >that are more precise than can be expressed by floating point.) > >This prompts a couple of related questions: > > (1) What is the best way to encode a double precision FITS keyword value? The NOST document, section 5.3.1. only states that the fixed format in column 11-30 is required for the MANDITORY keywords and is just recommended for other keywords. Thus, one is free to use all of columns 11-80 if needed or desired for the value of non-manditory keywords. In my FITSIO interface I format a double precision value greater than 20 characters long by beginning it in column 11 and extending it for as many columns as necessary to write the required number of decimal places. In general, a FITS reader should not assume that an integer, logical, or single precision floating point value will be right-justified in columns 11-30. This is not required by the FITS standard, so the reader should be prepared to find the keyword value anywhere in columns 11-80. In the FITSIO code the only assumption I make is that the value field is the first non-blank token in columns 11-80 of the keyword record. I then assume that the comment is contained in any remaining columns. (Except if this is a Complex keyword value, in which case the first token is the real part, the second token is the imaginary part and the remainder is the comment). > (2) If a FITS reader encounters a numeric value with too many digits >to be expressed as floating point, should it convert this value to double >precision? My FITS reader currently converts a FITS header value to >double precision if it contains more than 8 numerals. This sounds reasonable, but it rather depends on what you are reading the FITS file into. If the keyword value is being read into a FORTRAN variable, for instance, the variable would have to be dimensioned as double precision in the first place. From leb at gsfc.nasa.gov Tue Mar 24 19:57:56 1992 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2871" "Mon" "16" "March" "1992" "05:12:47" "GMT" "Lee E. Brotzman" "leb at gsfc.nasa.gov " "<7122146 at toto.iv>" "51" "Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?" "^From:" nil nil "3" "1992031605:12:47" "Unix based FITS table browsers?" (number " " mark " Lee E. Brotzman Mar 16 51/2871 " thread-indent "\"Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?\"\n") nil] nil) Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Nntp-Posting-Host: hypatia.gsfc.nasa.gov Organization: Goddard Space Flight Center From: leb at gsfc.nasa.gov (Lee E. Brotzman) Subject: Re: Unix based FITS table browsers? Date: Mon, 16 Mar 1992 05:12:47 GMT I'm the author of the MS-DOS FITS Table Browser (FTB) program distributed with the ADC CD-ROM. I am now working on a Unix version of FTB "by popular demand". However the work is proceeding just like the MS-DOS version -- slowly in my own time on the PC in my basement, with occasional uploads and compiles on NASA/GSFC Unix boxes. FTB's source code is pretty non-platform specific. The interface is command-based and any commands that FTB doesn't understand internally are simply thrown out to the OS with a system() call. Screen manipulation was originally done by encapsulating Borland Turbo C cursor-control calls in curses look-alike functions, since I always planned on porting the code completely to curses when I found a decent implementation for the PC. Now that I have found a good PC curses, I have replaced all of the Turbo C-specific code. But, I have found a few little quirks with curses that have driven me to revamp the user interface somewhat. For instance, scrolling in curses really sucks, especially over a modem, which is how I test the program. I'm working now to eliminate scrolling entirely, which isn't too hard. Once that's out of the way, I should be able to release a beta version 2.0. (And after I clean up the source code so that I wouldn't be ashamed to let other people read it :-) Unfortunately, the Unix port has taken me away from some other serious things on my FTB to-do list, like fixing a stupid bug in the way I skip over Generalized Extensions other than 'TABLE', and another more insidious bug caused by the Fortran origins of the TABLE field format definition. Maybe someone out there can help me with that last one. You see, TFORMn is defined as a FORTRAN 77 format specification, which is fine until you try to read floating point numbers in C. You can read a floating point number with an implied decimal point in Fortran with something like: READ(UNIT=STRING,FMT="F9.5") FPVAL but there is no equivalent capability in C (you can use "%9.5f" in sprintf() to print a float, but you can't use it in sscanf() to read it, only the field width -- the "9" in this case -- is allowed in the format specifier). I can try to do some pre-processing of the input numeric field so that a decimal point exists in the proper place, but I'd really appreciate it if someone had a generalized Fortran floating point read function in C that can handle implied decimal points cleanly. When I asked about this in comp.lang.c all I got was bitching about how I shouldn't be using implied decimal points in my data, like I can control that in a general FITS table reader. Sheesh! -- -- Lee E. Brotzman Internet: leb at hypatia.gsfc.nasa.gov -- Hughes STX DECNET: NDADSA::BROTZMAN -- National Space Science Data Center BITNET: ZMLEB at SCFMVS -- NASA Goddard Space Flight Center From pence at heawk1.gsfc.nasa.gov Tue Mar 24 19:58:15 1992 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["4009" "Mon" "16" "March" "1992" "17:23:19" "GMT" " William Pence" "pence at heawk1.gsfc.nasa.gov " "<442130 at toto.iv>" "77" "Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?" "^From:" nil nil "3" "1992031617:23:19" "Unix based FITS table browsers?" (number " " mark " William Pence Mar 16 77/4009 " thread-indent "\"Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?\"\n") nil] nil) Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Nntp-Posting-Host: heawk1.gsfc.nasa.gov Organization: Goddard Space Flight Center From: pence at heawk1.gsfc.nasa.gov ( William Pence) Subject: Re: Unix based FITS table browsers? Date: Mon, 16 Mar 1992 17:23:19 GMT dirk at spacsun.rice.edu (Dirk Valk) on Fri, 13 Mar 1992 21:15:58 GMT wrote: >Does anyone know where I can lay hands on a UNIX based program that will let >me manipulate, search and extract subsets of FITS tables? > >You can sort of do it by using the IRAF package STSDAS.FITSIO.STRFITS to turn >the FITS file into a GEIS file, and then manipulate it with the STSDAS.TTOOLS >package. But this means that you end up copying the entire table onto disk >storage -- that's like 56Mb for some of the tables -- which negates a lot of >the utility of the cdrom. The HEASARC (High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive and Research Center) at NASA/GSFC is currently developing a set of software utilities for manipulating FITS files (especially ASCII and Binary tables). I was planning to wait until this project was a little further advanced before publicizing it, but since there seems to be interest in this sort software it may be better to describe it sooner to possibly avoid duplication of effort by other groups. We are developing a suite of programs to manipulate the contents of FITS tables. For example, some of the more general tasks include: fsort - sort the rows in a FITS table based on the contents of one or more columns fproject - create a new FITS table from selected columns from an existing FITS table fselect - select rows from a table based on some logical selection criteria fdump - dump the contents of a FITS table to an ASCII file fcalc - perform arithmetic on table columns The functionality of these FITS tasks is being closely modelled on the tasks in the STSDAS TTOOLS package. All the tasks operate directly on FITS format files and create FITS files as output (and in a few cases, the tasks also input or output simple ASCII files). These utilities are being developed as part of the general HEASARC philosophy of directly using the FITS format as the primary data format for archiving, reducing and analysing data sets from past and present high-energy astronomy missions. These tools are being specifically developed to process the X-Ray data that will be received >from the Japanese/US Astro-D satellite to be launched next February, but the tools are intended to be general enough to be useful for manipulating any FITS format file. Our software design philosophy is to write the main body of the code in strict ANSI-standard Fortran-77 which is then portable to any machine with a F77 compiler. The FITSIO subroutine interface is used to read and write the FITS files, which is also machine independent. The interface to the user (or command language) to get the input parameters needed to run the task (e.g., the name of the input FITS table) has also been isolated through a standard subroutine interface to make the code more portable. Currently we can link these tasks to 2 different parameter interface libraries: 1. by linking to the F77 Interface Library for IRAF developed at the STScI, we produce an IRAF task. 2. by linking to the 'Host Interface' library developed at SAO/CfA we generate a standalone executable task which has the look and feel of an IRAF task, but in fact does not have any IRAF dependencies and can be envoked directly from the host machine operating system prompt. (we are currently using a prototype version of this interface) In both cases an IRAF-format parameter file is used as the basic mechanism for passing parameters between the user and the tasks. Currently we have 2+ programmers working full time on this project, and we expect to have a significant amount of it finished later this year. I will be giving a status report on this project at the WGAS session at the June AAS meeting, for anyone interested in hearing more details, or they can contact me directly. William Pence pence at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov or HEASRC::PENCE (301)286-4599 From dwells at azalea.cx.nrao.edu Tue Mar 24 19:59:36 1992 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1286" "Tue" "17" "March" "1992" "03:37:37" "GMT" "Don Wells" "dwells at azalea.cx.nrao.edu " "<6760721 at toto.iv>" "26" "Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?" "^From:" nil nil "3" "1992031703:37:37" "Unix based FITS table browsers?" (number " " mark " Don Wells Mar 17 26/1286 " thread-indent "\"Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?\"\n") nil] nil) Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits In-Reply-To: bds at woim.id.macsch.com's message of Mon, 16 Mar 92 18: 40:14 GMT Organization: National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Charlottesville, VA. From: dwells at azalea.cx.nrao.edu (Don Wells) Subject: Re: Unix based FITS table browsers? Date: Tue, 17 Mar 1992 03:37:37 GMT In article <1992Mar16.184014.21997 at draco.macsch.com> bds at woim.id.macsch.com () writes: "... Enclosed is a utility that I wrote for my brother. This program.. is an executable and runs on his sun4 and my sparc2..." I have placed this executable in directory FITS/OSsupport/SunOS/SPARC on fits.cx.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]: -rwxr-xr-x 1 dwells 172032 Mar 16 16:59 fits-bds -rw-r--r-- 1 dwells 89711 Mar 16 16:59 fits-bds.Z -rw-r--r-- 1 dwells 1336 Mar 16 16:58 fits-bds.txt I confirm that SPARC-binary "fits-bds" will execute on a SPARC under SunOS 4.1.1 and OpenWindows-2, and that it will display FITS-format images. It creates two small windows, one for a command menu (labelled "FitsImaging v2.1") and the other a color map. It appears that it will only accept files with names of the form *.fits. When a file is selected a third window is created for the image display. It is somewhat slow, even on our Sparcstation-2, but it does work. -- Donald C. Wells Associate Scientist dwells at nrao.edu National Radio Astronomy Observatory +1-804-296-0277 520 Edgemont Road Fax= +1-804-296-0278 Charlottesville, Virginia 22903-2475 USA 78:31.1W, 38:02.2N From sla at fast.ucsc.edu Tue Mar 24 20:00:05 1992 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["980" "" "17" "March" "92" "14:54:50" "GMT" "Steve Allen" "sla at fast.ucsc.edu " "<2394710 at toto.iv>" "17" "VIRUSes (was Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?)" "^From:" nil nil "3" "1992031714:54:50" "VIRUSes (was Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?)" (number " " mark " Steve Allen Mar 17 17/980 " thread-indent "\"VIRUSes (was Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?)\"\n") nil] nil) Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Summary: run a binary I've never seen the code for? are you kidding? Keywords: display fits unix xwindows Followup-To: comp.risks Organization: UCO/Lick Observatory From: sla at fast.ucsc.edu (Steve Allen) Subject: VIRUSes (was Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?) Date: 17 Mar 92 14:54:50 GMT In article <1992Mar16.184014.21997 at draco.macsch.com> bds at woim.id.macsch.com writes: >Hello all, >Enclosed is a utility that I wrote for my brother. ... >This is an executable and runs on his sun4 and my sparc2.... >I request that you give me feedback on this program as to future >-Barry > [followed by what appears to be a UUencoded binary for Sparc] No offense intended, but you don't honestly expect me to put this binary on some machine with data that I value and run it, do you? I might do it immediately after a complete dump of all my disks, and after unplugging that particular Sparc from the net to contain possible damage. Be very careful about this. _______________________________________________________________________________ Steve Allen | That was the equation! | sla at helios.ucsc.edu UCO/Lick Observatory | Existence!...Survival must | If the UC were opining, Santa Cruz, CA 95064 | cancel out programming! -- Ruk | it wouldn't tell me. From cflatter at nrao.edu Tue Mar 24 20:00:11 1992 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1823" "Tue" "17" "March" "1992" "16:54:39" "GMT" "Chris Flatters,109,238" "cflatter at nrao.edu " "<1980822 at toto.iv>" "35" "Re: VIRUSes (was Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?)" "^From:" nil nil "3" "1992031716:54:39" "VIRUSes (was Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?)" (number " " mark " Chris Flatters,10 Mar 17 35/1823 " thread-indent "\"Re: VIRUSes (was Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?)\"\n") nil] nil) Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Reply-To: cflatter at nrao.edu Organization: NRAO From: cflatter at nrao.edu (Chris Flatters,109,238) Subject: Re: VIRUSes (was Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?) Date: Tue, 17 Mar 1992 16:54:39 GMT In article 30847 at darkstar.ucsc.edu, sla at fast.ucsc.edu (Steve Allen) writes: >In article <1992Mar16.184014.21997 at draco.macsch.com> bds at woim.id.macsch.com writes: >>Hello all, >>Enclosed is a utility that I wrote for my brother. ... >>This is an executable and runs on his sun4 and my sparc2.... >>I request that you give me feedback on this program as to future >>-Barry >> [followed by what appears to be a UUencoded binary for Sparc] > >No offense intended, but you don't honestly expect me to put this >binary on some machine with data that I value and run it, do you? >I might do it immediately after a complete dump of all my disks, and after >unplugging that particular Sparc from the net to contain possible damage. >Be very careful about this. I hope that we are not going to see the free interchange of astronomical software inhibited by virus hysteria spreading from the DOS world. DOS is particularly vulnerable to malicious actions since all DOS users and DOS programs effectively have system administrator privileges. This is not true of a UNIX system unless the sysadmin has done some remarkably stupid things to it. While it is technically possible for a program to exploit bugs in the system to get itself root privileges (as the Morris worm did) the Trojan horse approach would not be the preferred method to do this. If nasties are going to get onto your machine they are much more likely to come over the net. ============================================================================== Chris Flatters | cflatter at nrao.edu National Radio Astronomy Observatory | ============================================================================== Desperation is the raw material of drastic change --- W. S. Burroughs ============================================================================== From warnock at nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov Tue Mar 24 20:00:19 1992 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["964" "Tue" "17" "March" "1992" "17:45:00" "GMT" "Archie Warnock" "warnock at nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov " "<6517822 at toto.iv>" "16" "Re: VIRUSes (was Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?)" nil nil nil "3" "1992031717:45:00" "VIRUSes (was Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?)" (number " " mark " Archie Warnock Mar 17 16/964 " thread-indent "\"Re: VIRUSes (was Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?)\"\n") nil] nil) Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41 Nntp-Posting-Host: nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov Organization: Hughes STX - NASA/NCDS From: warnock at nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov (Archie Warnock) Subject: Re: VIRUSes (was Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?) Date: Tue, 17 Mar 1992 17:45:00 GMT In article <1992Mar17.165439.5812 at nrao.edu>, cflatter at nrao.edu writes... >I hope that we are not going to see the free interchange of astronomical >software inhibited by virus hysteria spreading from the DOS world. DOS >is particularly vulnerable to malicious actions since all DOS users and >DOS programs effectively have system administrator privileges. This is In addition, it should be pointed out that the virus threat to DOS and Macintosh machines is blown way, way out of proportion with reality, and that most virus infestations on those platforms have come from commercial software, rather than PD or shareware files from reputable BBSs. Viruses are real, and rare. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Archie Warnock Internet: warnock at nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov -- Hughes STX SPAN: NSSDC::WARNOCK -- NASA/GSFC "Hail To The Redskins!" From bds at woim.id.macsch.com Tue Mar 24 20:00:26 1992 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["483" "Tue" "17" "March" "92" "19:05:02" "GMT" "bds at woim.id.macsch.com ()" "bds at woim.id.macsch.com ()" "<5271126 at toto.iv>" "11" "Re: VIRUSes (was Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?)" nil nil nil "3" "1992031719:05:02" "VIRUSes (was Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?)" (number " " mark " bds at woim.id.macsc Mar 17 11/483 " thread-indent "\"Re: VIRUSes (was Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?)\"\n") nil] nil) Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Organization: MacNeal-Schwendler Corp. From: bds at woim.id.macsch.com () Subject: Re: VIRUSes (was Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?) Date: Tue, 17 Mar 92 19:05:02 GMT I apologize for not putting the code on an ftp site. To post it was a spur of the moment decision. The display is slow because to merge 3 images and display on 8bit machines requires some fancy coding. Is this the type of program that you all out there would be interested in? I mean, should I continue to work on it? By the way, the second window that has the colormap allows you to select a color and see where in your image that color is used and what values it is. Barry From pmurphy at baboon.cv.nrao.edu Tue Mar 24 20:00:33 1992 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1787" "Wed" "18" "March" "1992" "21:18:52" "GMT" "Pat Murphy" "pmurphy at baboon.cv.nrao.edu " "<3818059 at toto.iv>" "32" "Re: VIRUSes (was Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?)" nil nil nil "3" "1992031821:18:52" "VIRUSes (was Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?)" (number " " mark " Pat Murphy Mar 18 32/1787 " thread-indent "\"Re: VIRUSes (was Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?)\"\n") nil] nil) Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits In-Reply-To: warnock at nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov's message of Tue, 17 Mar 1992 17: 45:00 GMT Organization: National Radio Astronomy Observatory From: pmurphy at baboon.cv.nrao.edu (Pat Murphy) Subject: Re: VIRUSes (was Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?) Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1992 21:18:52 GMT In article <17MAR199212453081 at nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov> warnock at nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov (Archie Warnock) writes: In article <1992Mar17.165439.5812 at nrao.edu>, cflatter at nrao.edu writes... >I hope that we are not going to see the free interchange of astronomical >software inhibited by virus hysteria spreading from the DOS world. DOS >is particularly vulnerable to malicious actions since all DOS users and >DOS programs effectively have system administrator privileges. This is In addition, it should be pointed out that the virus threat to DOS and Macintosh machines is blown way, way out of proportion with reality, and that most virus infestations on those platforms have come from commercial software, rather than PD or shareware files from reputable BBSs. Viruses are real, and rare. One simple way of spotting suspicious binaries in a case like this is to run the unix "strings" command on the file. In this case there is nothing harmful visible offhand (plus it shows nicely exactly which FITS keywords are checked :-). On large binaries, you want to pipe the output through more (or less). And yes, I know someone determined can defeat this check, but it is another firewall -- and a useful one IMHO. - Pat -- ========================================================================== | Patrick P. Murphy, Ph.D. Scientific Programming Analyst | | National Radio Astronomy Observatory Net: pmurphy at nrao.edu | | 520 Edgemont Road or: uunet!nrao.edu!pmurphy | | Charlottesville, VA 22903-2475 Phone: (804) 296-0372 | | "I don't believe in the no-win scenario" --- James T. Kirk | ========================================================================== From anthony at csd4.csd.uwm.edu Tue Mar 24 20:00:53 1992 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1083" "Thu" "19" "March" "1992" "02:18:15" "GMT" "Anthony J Stieber" "anthony at csd4.csd.uwm.edu " "<2159204 at toto.iv>" "24" "Re: VIRUSes (was Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?)" "^From:" nil nil "3" "1992031902:18:15" "VIRUSes (was Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?)" (number " " mark " Anthony J Stieber Mar 19 24/1083 " thread-indent "\"Re: VIRUSes (was Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?)\"\n") nil] nil) Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Followup-To: comp.virus Organization: Computing Services Division, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee From: anthony at csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Anthony J Stieber) Subject: Re: VIRUSes (was Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?) Date: Thu, 19 Mar 1992 02:18:15 GMT I really suggest that anyone interested in finding viruses get one of the several virus scanning programs. F-prot, McAffee Scan, and Virex are all good programs and are freely distributable. Viruses do tend to be rather rare, until I started working in a computer lab I had never seen one before. Before we started to actively prevent viruses from getting on the lab machines I'd see a dozen infections a week, now it's down to about one infection a month. Whether you see viruses depends on who you interact with and how careful they are. Incidently, strings will only work on file viruses, it can't be used on boot sector viruses like stoned or michaelangelo. Although some viruses do have interesting strings within them plenty of others do not, or the strings are encrypted to prevent casual searches. In any case, viruses are only one of many possible ways to loose valuble information. The best preparation is to back up the information. See comp.virus and archive sites like wuarchive.wustl.edu. -- <-:(= Anthony Stieber anthony at csd4.csd.uwm.edu uwm!uwmcsd4!anthony From carl at SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU Tue Mar 24 20:01:27 1992 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1769" "Tue" "17" "March" "1992" "18:12:11" "GMT" "Carl J Lydick" "carl at SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU " "<2883339 at toto.iv>" "28" "Re: VIRUSes (was Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?)" nil nil nil "3" "1992031718:12:11" "VIRUSes (was Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?)" (number " " mark " Carl J Lydick Mar 17 28/1769 " thread-indent "\"Re: VIRUSes (was Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?)\"\n") nil] nil) Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Nntp-Posting-Host: sol1.gps.caltech.edu Reply-To: carl at SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU Organization: HST Wide Field/Planetary Camera From: carl at SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Carl J Lydick) Subject: Re: VIRUSes (was Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?) Date: Tue, 17 Mar 1992 18:12:11 GMT In article <1992Mar17.165439.5812 at nrao.edu>, cflatter at nrao.edu (Chris Flatters,109,238) writes: >I hope that we are not going to see the free interchange of astronomical >software inhibited by virus hysteria spreading from the DOS world. DOS >is particularly vulnerable to malicious actions since all DOS users and >DOS programs effectively have system administrator privileges. This is >not true of a UNIX system unless the sysadmin has done some remarkably >stupid things to it. > >While it is technically possible for a program to exploit bugs in the >system to get itself root privileges (as the Morris worm did) the Trojan >horse approach would not be the preferred method to do this. If nasties >are going to get onto your machine they are much more likely to come >over the net. On UNIX systems, it is quite easy for a program to, e.g., mail a copy of /etc/passwd to the person who wrote the program, who can then try to find passwords that encrypt to the values for the root password and a non-privileged user's password. It's also quite easy for a program to delete (or worse, corrupt) all files owned by the person who runs it. If you value your data, DON'T accept binary executables except from trusted sources. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Carl J Lydick | INTERnet: CARL at SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU | NSI/HEPnet: SOL1::CARL Disclaimer: Hey, I understand VAXes and VMS. That's what I get paid for. My understanding of astronomy is purely at the amateur level (or below). So unless what I'm saying is directly related to VAX/VMS, don't hold me or my organization responsible for it. If it IS related to VAX/VMS, you can try to hold me responsible for it, but my organization had nothing to do with it. From sysmark at helios.physics.utoronto.ca Tue Mar 24 20:01:34 1992 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1637" "Tue" "17" "March" "1992" "18:27:48" "GMT" "Mark Bartelt" "sysmark at helios.physics.utoronto.ca " "<7168736 at toto.iv>" "34" "Re: VIRUSes (was Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?)" nil nil nil "3" "1992031718:27:48" "VIRUSes (was Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?)" (number " " mark " Mark Bartelt Mar 17 34/1637 " thread-indent "\"Re: VIRUSes (was Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?)\"\n") nil] nil) Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Reply-To: mark at cita.toronto.edu Organization: University of Toronto Physics/Astronomy/CITA From: sysmark at helios.physics.utoronto.ca (Mark Bartelt) Subject: Re: VIRUSes (was Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?) Date: Tue, 17 Mar 1992 18:27:48 GMT [ Chris Flatters ] | I hope that we are not going to see the free interchange of astronomical | software inhibited by virus hysteria spreading from the DOS world. DOS | is particularly vulnerable to malicious actions since all DOS users and | DOS programs effectively have system administrator privileges. This is | not true of a UNIX system unless the sysadmin has done some remarkably | stupid things to it. | | While it is technically possible for a program to exploit bugs in the | system to get itself root privileges (as the Morris worm did) the Trojan | horse approach would not be the preferred method to do this. If nasties | are going to get onto your machine they are much more likely to come | over the net. Well, I prefer to err on the side of excessive caution, and therefore never install an executable that I haven't built from source myself. Of course, even this is no guarantee of safety; not by a long shot. For example, let me toss out a couple questions: (1) How many of you have pulled something off the net which included a README file that said something like Type "make" to build executables, then su to root, then type "make install". (2) Those of you who raised your hands to #1: How many of you always look at the makefile to see what "make install" will actually *do*? I do, but I've certainly encountered far too many people who don't bother. Mark Bartelt 416/978-5619 Canadian Institute for mark at cita.toronto.edu Theoretical Astrophysics mark at cita.utoronto.ca From stefan at helios.physics.utoronto.ca Tue Mar 24 20:01:41 1992 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1072" "Tue" "17" "March" "1992" "19:57:18" "GMT" "Stefan Mochnacki" "stefan at helios.physics.utoronto.ca " "<4281679 at toto.iv>" "21" "Re: VIRUSes (was Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?)" nil nil nil "3" "1992031719:57:18" "VIRUSes (was Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?)" (number " " mark " Stefan Mochnacki Mar 17 21/1072 " thread-indent "\"Re: VIRUSes (was Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?)\"\n") nil] nil) Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Organization: University of Toronto Physics/Astronomy/CITA From: stefan at helios.physics.utoronto.ca (Stefan Mochnacki) Subject: Re: VIRUSes (was Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?) Date: Tue, 17 Mar 1992 19:57:18 GMT I cannot recall EVER seeing an EXECUTABLE for a Unix machine distributed over Usenet. It is completely unnecessary, since in general the potential users will have an appropriate compiler and the standard libraries. That is not the case in the MS-DOS or Mac world, where (a) there is a large proliferation of non-standard compilers, (b) there is (was???) no standard graphical interface, and (c) most users would not have a compiler anyway. Thus, I would like to remind the well-meaning poster of "fits-bds" that only SOURCE CODE should be posted to Usenet if it is for Unix use. Anyway, many of us have non-SPARC machines, such as Sun 3's and 386i's. Usually, decent code will compile on run on many different architectures, sometimes with a little hacking needed. Stefan Mochnacki -- Stefan W. Mochnacki INTERNET - stefan at centaur.astro.utoronto.ca Astronomy, U. of Toronto UUCP - {uunet,pyramid}!utai!helios.physics!stefan Ph. (416) 884-9562 BITNET - mochnacki at utorphys.bitnet FAX (416) 884-2672 LOCATION - David Dunlap Observatory From hybl at umbc4.umbc.edu) Tue Mar 24 20:01:48 1992 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["649" "" "18" "March" "92" "00:42:53" "GMT" "UMAB-BIOPHYS" "hybl at umbc4.umbc.edu (Dr. Albert Hybl )" "<5994347 at toto.iv>" "12" "Re: VIRUSes (was Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?)" nil nil nil "3" "1992031800:42:53" "VIRUSes (was Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?)" (number " " mark " UMAB-BIOPHYS Mar 18 12/649 " thread-indent "\"Re: VIRUSes (was Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?)\"\n") nil] nil) Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Organization: University of Maryland Baltimore Campus, Academic Computing Services From: hybl at umbc4.umbc.edu (Dr. Albert Hybl (UMAB-BIOPHYS)) Subject: Re: VIRUSes (was Re: Unix based FITS table browsers?) Date: 18 Mar 92 00:42:53 GMT In article <1992Mar17.195718.28883 at helios.physics.utoronto.ca> stefan at helios.physics.utoronto.ca (Stefan Mochnacki) writes: >I cannot recall EVER seeing an EXECUTABLE for a Unix machine >distributed over Usenet. It is completely unnecessary, since in general >the potential users will have an appropriate compiler and the >standard libraries. The IRAF software is distributed with binaries tuned to each machine type. One can also get the source and recreate the whole system. I'd hate to have to look for a virus in that system--source or binaries. As Farragut said: "Damn the virus--full installation ahead!" Albert Hybl (hybl at umbc3.umbc.edu) From sla at fast.ucsc.edu Tue Mar 24 20:01:57 1992 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1581" "" "17" "March" "92" "21:36:51" "GMT" "Steve Allen" "sla at fast.ucsc.edu " "<611585 at toto.iv>" "23" "I HAVE to be careful (was Re: VIRUSes)" nil nil nil "3" "1992031721:36:51" "I HAVE to be careful (was Re: VIRUSes)" (number " " mark " Steve Allen Mar 17 23/1581 " thread-indent "\"I HAVE to be careful (was Re: VIRUSes)\"\n") nil] nil) Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Summary: but I do not wish to offend Keywords: VIRUSes Followup-To: comp.risks Organization: UCO/Lick Observatory From: sla at fast.ucsc.edu (Steve Allen) Subject: I HAVE to be careful (was Re: VIRUSes) Date: 17 Mar 92 21:36:51 GMT In article <1992Mar17.165439.5812 at nrao.edu> cflatter at nrao.edu writes: >I hope that we are not going to see the free interchange of astronomical >software inhibited by virus hysteria spreading from the DOS world. I love the idea of free interchange of astronomical software, but the original posting left too many questions unanswered. --Who is the original poster? I've never seen him before in this group. He seems not to have mastered the use of the USENET yet. How dare I endanger the people who rely daily on the software that I own and maintain here? How sure am I that our system managers have patched the NFS bugs or the integer divide by zero bug on all Sparcs networked to me? --The program says it is for Sparcs. It is a binary. It has no docs, no man pages. I would like know what version of the OS it was built under, what shareable libraries it may try linking with. --If it does turn out to be useful (and I expect that it does) what do I do if I want to put it on a DecStation or a RS/6000? Can I have the source? Does the original poster consider this as a teaser for some future commercial product? Is the software copyrighted? Am I permitted to freely redistribute the binary or would that place me and Lick at risk for some legal action? _______________________________________________________________________________ Steve Allen | That was the equation! | sla at helios.ucsc.edu UCO/Lick Observatory | Existence!...Survival must | If the UC were opining, Santa Cruz, CA 95064 | cancel out programming! -- Ruk | it wouldn't tell me. From bds at woim.id.macsch.com Tue Mar 24 20:02:05 1992 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["620" "Tue" "17" "March" "92" "23:35:00" "GMT" "bds at woim.id.macsch.com ()" "bds at woim.id.macsch.com ()" "<4618603 at toto.iv>" "16" "FitsImaging Version 2.1" nil nil nil "3" "1992031723:35:00" "FitsImaging Version 2.1" (number " " mark " bds at woim.id.macsc Mar 17 16/620 " thread-indent "\"FitsImaging Version 2.1\"\n") nil] nil) Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Keywords: Fits Imaging XWindows Organization: MacNeal-Schwendler Corp. Distribution: sci.astro.fits From: bds at woim.id.macsch.com () Subject: FitsImaging Version 2.1 Date: Tue, 17 Mar 92 23:35:00 GMT I have sent off the source code for the imaging utility that has taken up the last bunch of bandwidth here. I named the tar file bds-fitsv2.1.tar. Whatever happens to it after that, I don't know. I put it on 192.33.115.8. All I ask is that any modifications made to it somehow find there way to the general populace and that nobody takes this code and goes commercial-like. This code has been designed and implemented on my own time and the Company Macneal-Schwendler has absolutely nothing to do with this program. I will try to write up some sort of a user guide to it when I get the chance. Have fun! Barry From dwells at azalea.cx.nrao.edu Tue Mar 24 20:02:12 1992 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["717" "Wed" "18" "March" "1992" "01:51:03" "GMT" "Don Wells" "dwells at azalea.cx.nrao.edu " "<5522003 at toto.iv>" "18" "Re: FitsImaging Version 2.1" "^From:" nil nil "3" "1992031801:51:03" "FitsImaging Version 2.1" (number " " mark " Don Wells Mar 18 18/717 " thread-indent "\"Re: FitsImaging Version 2.1\"\n") nil] nil) Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits In-Reply-To: bds at woim.id.macsch.com's message of Tue, 17 Mar 92 23: 35:00 GMT Organization: National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Charlottesville, VA. Distribution: sci.astro.fits From: dwells at azalea.cx.nrao.edu (Don Wells) Subject: Re: FitsImaging Version 2.1 Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1992 01:51:03 GMT In article <1992Mar17.233500.11081 at draco.macsch.com> bds at woim.id.macsch.com () writes: "I have sent off the source code for the imaging utility .. named the tar file bds-fitsv2.1.tar.. put it on 192.33.115.8..." ^^^^^^^^^^^^ fits.cx.nrao.edu It is in directory /FITS/OSsupport/Unix: -rw-r--r-- 1 dwells vlb 122880 Mar 17 18:25 bds-fitsv2.1.tar -rw-r--r-- 1 dwells vlb 901 Mar 17 20:36 bds-fitsv2.1.txt -- Donald C. Wells Associate Scientist dwells at nrao.edu National Radio Astronomy Observatory +1-804-296-0277 520 Edgemont Road Fax= +1-804-296-0278 Charlottesville, Virginia 22903-2475 USA 78:31.1W, 38:02.2N From bds at woim.id.macsch.com Tue Mar 24 20:02:31 1992 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["795" "Thu" "19" "March" "92" "20:36:09" "GMT" "bds at woim.id.macsch.com ()" "bds at woim.id.macsch.com ()" "<3724319 at toto.iv>" "28" "Fits Imaging Notes" nil nil nil "3" "1992031920:36:09" "Fits Imaging Notes" (number " " mark " bds at woim.id.macsc Mar 19 28/795 " thread-indent "\"Fits Imaging Notes\"\n") nil] nil) Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Organization: MacNeal-Schwendler Corp. Distribution: sci.astro.fits From: bds at woim.id.macsch.com () Subject: Fits Imaging Notes Date: Thu, 19 Mar 92 20:36:09 GMT FitsImaging v2.1 ---------------- Allows you to view FITS images on (most likely) any XWindows enironment. I originally wrote it on an HP400 series machine and tested it on a Sun4 and Sparc2. With it you can --------------- 1. Merge 2 or 3 separate images and easily see where they overlap. 2. Do image processing on any of the images to highlight any sources. 3. Focus the display to enhance a range of values. 4. Interactively view the images contours by selecting a color from the colormap window 5. Cycle the colors in you image to 'animate' your display. 6. The code is written cleanly, so as to enable easy modifications and to make enhancing the program easy. Making the program ------------------ 1. tar -xvf bds-fitsv2.1.tar 2. make fits To run it you simply type "fits" From lip at s1.gov Tue Mar 24 20:02:41 1992 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["812" "" "24" "March" "92" "01:27:16" "GMT" "Loren I. Petrich" "lip at s1.gov " "<5204602 at toto.iv>" "22" "FITS, GIF, TIFF, etc..." nil nil nil "3" "1992032401:27:16" "FITS, GIF, TIFF, etc..." (number " " mark " Loren I. Petrich Mar 24 22/812 " thread-indent "\"FITS, GIF, TIFF, etc...\"\n") nil] nil) Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Labs, Livermore CA Originator: lip at s1.gov Nntp-Posting-Host: s1.gov From: lip at s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich) Subject: FITS, GIF, TIFF, etc... Date: 24 Mar 92 01:27:16 GMT There were some references to public-domain code for reading and writing FITS files. I would like to ask about similar code for other graphics formats, like GIF, TIFF, and so on. I have software that can display FITS and GIF images; what I need is software that one can call from a program that can read and write FITS and GIF images, given an array of data to be read into or written from. In effect, I want: (Data Array in Program) -> (FITS or GIF file) (FITS or GIF file) -> (Data Array in Program) I wish any such software to be callable from C; my preference would be C, though I would accept Fortran. The hardware I intend to run it on is Sun workstations, such as the Sun 4 and the Sparc. I wish to have such software because I wish to experiment on various forms of image processing. /Loren From benedict at chaos.utexas.edu Sat Mar 28 16:10:52 1992 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["585" "" "24" "March" "92" "14:04:37" "GMT" "Thomas Benedict" "benedict at chaos.utexas.edu " "<55424 at toto.iv>" "11" "FITS read and write on PC" nil nil nil "3" "1992032414:04:37" "FITS read and write on PC" (number " " mark " Thomas Benedict Mar 24 11/585 " thread-indent "\"FITS read and write on PC\"\n") nil] nil) Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Distribution: sci.astro.fits Organization: Center for Nonlinear Dynamics, University of Texas at Austin From: benedict at chaos.utexas.edu (Thomas Benedict) Subject: FITS read and write on PC Date: 24 Mar 92 14:04:37 GMT Does anyone have routines to read and write FITS format files on a PC in C? The undergraduate telescope at U.T. has a Star I CCD camera on it, and with due apology to the people at Photometrics, the control and data-reduction software is lousy. I'm re-writing the software to fit the needs of a specific project, but we're doing our data reduction on IRAF and either need to write the files in IRAF format or in FITS. I'd personally prefer FITS, but don't want to have to go through the FITS specification to write the routines to handle the files if I don't have to. Tom Benedict From daugherty at aedc-vax.af.mil Sat Mar 28 16:11:10 1992 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["268" "" "26" "March" "92" "15:49:00" "GMT" "Tom Daugherty A11442 x4647" "daugherty at aedc-vax.af.mil " "<5053435 at toto.iv>" "11" "Re: Fits Imaging Notes" nil nil nil "3" "1992032615:49:00" "Fits Imaging Notes" (number " " mark " Tom Daugherty A11 Mar 26 11/268 " thread-indent "\"Re: Fits Imaging Notes\"\n") nil] nil) Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Distribution: sci.astro.fits Organization: Arnold Engineering Development Center Nntp-Posting-Host: aedc-vax.af.mil News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41 From: daugherty at aedc-vax.af.mil (Tom Daugherty A11442 x4647) Subject: Re: Fits Imaging Notes Date: 26 Mar 92 15:49:00 GMT In article <1992Mar19.203609.20302 at draco.macsch.com>, bds at woim.id.macsch.com writes... > >FitsImaging v2.1> Sounds great! I may have missed an earlier posting, but is it available from FTP? Is it public domain? Thanks Tom Daugherty (DAUGHERTY at AEDC-VAX.AF.MIL) From bds at woim.id.macsch.com Sat Mar 28 16:11:29 1992 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1074" "Fri" "27" "March" "92" "16:11:24" "GMT" "bds at woim.id.macsch.com ()" "bds at woim.id.macsch.com ()" "<3905882 at toto.iv>" "35" "Re: Fits Imaging Notes" nil nil nil "3" "1992032716:11:24" "Fits Imaging Notes" (number " " mark " bds at woim.id.macsc Mar 27 35/1074 " thread-indent "\"Re: Fits Imaging Notes\"\n") nil] nil) Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Organization: MacNeal-Schwendler Corp. Distribution: sci.astro.fits From: bds at woim.id.macsch.com () Subject: Re: Fits Imaging Notes Date: Fri, 27 Mar 92 16:11:24 GMT FitsImaging v2.1 ---------------- Allows you to view FITS images on (most likely) any XWindows enironment. I originally wrote it on an HP400 series machine and tested it on a Sun4 and Sparc2. It is on <192.33.115.8> in /FITS/OSsupport/Unix and is called bds-fitsv2.1.tar. With it you can --------------- 1. Merge 2 or 3 separate images and easily see where they overlap. 2. Do image processing on any of the images to highlight any sources. 3. Focus the display to enhance a range of values. 4. Interactively view the images contours by selecting a color from the colormap window 5. Cycle the colors in you image to 'animate' your display. 6. The code is written cleanly, so as to enable easy modifications and to make enhancing the program easy. Making the program ------------------ 1. tar -xvf bds-fitsv2.1.tar 2. make fits To run it you simply type "fits" If you like the program and find it usefull then please send e-mail to my brother of whom I wrote the program for. His adress is Thanks. Barry From swalton at aurora.csun.edu Sat Mar 28 19:01:57 1992 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["730" "Sat" "28" "March" "1992" "21:44:43" "GMT" "Stephen Walton" "swalton at aurora.csun.edu " "<1148526 at toto.iv>" "14" "Re: FITS read and write on PC" nil nil nil "3" "1992032821:44:43" "FITS read and write on PC" (number " " mark " Stephen Walton Mar 28 14/730 " thread-indent "\"Re: FITS read and write on PC\"\n") nil] nil) Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Distribution: sci.astro.fits Organization: California State University, Northridge From: swalton at aurora.csun.edu (Stephen Walton) Subject: Re: FITS read and write on PC Date: Sat, 28 Mar 1992 21:44:43 GMT In article benedict at chaos.utexas.edu (Thomas Benedict) writes: >Does anyone have routines to read and write FITS format files on a PC >in C? Get a copy of PCVISTA. It is a complete, small, FITS-based image processing package for PC's from UC Berkeley. Not sure of the current cost; you can e-mail Michael Richmond at richmond at bllac.berkeley.edu. A description of the system is in Treffers and Richmond, P.A.S.P. _101_, 725. It comes with complete sources, including a set of subroutines for reading and writing FITS images in C. -- Stephen Walton, Dept. of Physics & Astronomy, Cal State Univ. Northridge "Anyone who remembers the sixties probably wasn't there."---Robin Williams From dwells at azalea.cx.nrao.edu Sun Mar 29 00:52:47 1992 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["15667" "Sun" "29" "March" "1992" "05:48:47" "GMT" "Don Wells" "dwells at azalea.cx.nrao.edu " "<5035419 at toto.iv>" "302" "Happy Birthday, FITS! [LONG]" "^From:" nil nil "3" "1992032905:48:47" "Happy Birthday, FITS! [LONG]" (number " " mark " Don Wells Mar 29 302/15667 " thread-indent "\"Happy Birthday, FITS! [LONG]\"\n") nil] nil) Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Organization: National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Charlottesville, VA. Distribution: sci From: dwells at azalea.cx.nrao.edu (Don Wells) Subject: Happy Birthday, FITS! [LONG] Date: Sun, 29 Mar 1992 05:48:47 GMT Happy Birthday, FITS! I consider March 28th to be the birthday for FITS, because it was on March 28, 1979, that Eric Greisen and I completed the Basic FITS Agreement. FITS is now a teenager -- today is its 13th birthday. ---*--- A file folder which I brought from Arizona to Virginia in 1981 is labelled "Image Interchange Tape Format notes, Ron Harten (Leiden) correspondence". That folder contains a number of documents relevant to the early history of FITS. I reproduce many of them below as a birthday present for FITS. --- Magic Numbers --- The folder contains a memo by me dated 27 December 1976 and titled "Word and Pixel Combinations for the proposed Universal Interchange Format". The purpose of this memo was to document my thinking soon after Ron Harten (NFRA [now at RCA Astroelectronics, Princeton, NJ]) had visited me at KPNO in November 1976, and had suggested that our community needed to have an interchange format. Ron told me that he had used a magic record size to move Westerbork data between IBM and CDC computers in the Netherlands; my memory is that it was 720 bytes. The memo contains the following tables and text: # words per integral # pixels per integral # bits prime # words # of pixels # of words per word factors per packet 8-bit 16-bit 32-bit 8-bit 16-bit 32-bit -------- --------- ---------- ----- ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ 6 2.3 240 8 2.2.2 180 12 2.2.3 120 2 4 8 3 3 3 16 2.2.2.2 90 1 1 2 2 1 1 18 2.3.3 80 4 8 16 9 9 9 24 2.2.2.3 60 1 2 4 3 3 3 32 2.2.2.2.2 45 1 1 1 4 2 1 36 2.2.3.3 40 2 4 8 9 9 9 48 2.2.2.2.3 30 1 1 2 6 3 3 60 2.2.3.5 24 2 4 8 15 15 15 "The adopted packet size is 1440 bits, which is the least common multiple of the word sizes: 2.2.2.2.2.3.3.5, or 32.9.5. An agreed maximum number of packets per physical record must be decided. One suggested number is 21 packets, which is 30240 bits, and is less than the CDC 6000/7000-series tape physical record size limit of 30720 bits. For this size the tape packing factor is about 89% for both 7 and 9-track tapes at 800 bpi, which is certainly satisfactory. At 1600 bpi the packing factor falls to about 30% but we need to make some compromises here for the convenience of small computers. Anyway 800 bpi tape should probably be the recommended standard as they are the most common density." # bits per word Existing Computers with this word size -------- -------------------------------------- 12 PDP-8 16 numerous minicomputers 18 PDP-9 24 Datacraft 6024 (now Harris/6) 32 IBM 360/370-series, Interdata 7/32, 8/32 36 DEC-10, Univac 1100-series (ones-complement!) 48 CDC 3000-series 60 CDC 6000/7000-series and Cyber 170-series [Note that VAXen are not mentioned for 32 bits -- the VAX-11/780 was not announced until October 1977, ten months after this memo] --- Two Prototypes --- Ron Harten and I both built prototype formats during 1977, and exchanged data tapes. John Dickel (UIUC) travelled back and forth between Westerbork and KPNO during 1977 and 1978 carrying radio and optical imagery of supernova remnants encoded in the two formats, in order to carry out his projects to register the imagery. My folder contains letters from Ron describing his format, and letters from me offering technical criticism, and responses from Ron point by point. Ron's prototype included support for world coordinate systems and for machine-independent wide dynamic range ancillary data (he used logarithms encoded in binary integers). The folder also contains a copy of IPPS Technical Memo No. 3, titled "Structure of the image interchange tapes generated by command WIT16 in the MAGTAPE menu of the IPPS", the memo that documented my prototype. IPPS is "Interactive Image Processing System", and WIT16 is "Write Interchange Tape 16" [bits]. WIT16 had a logical record size of 1440 bits and the headers were in binary. The typical blocking factor was 21, 30240 bits, 3780 8-bit bytes, 5040 6-bit bytes, as discussed in the memo reproduced above. The "version code" of WIT16 was the integer 19770322, which indicates when I froze the design. The format made provision for arbitrary amounts of ancillary information encoded in binary, it had a field for "number of images" in order to support 3-dimensional matricies, it had a blank pixel convention, and the technical memo gives an elaborate discussion of algorithms for dealing with word size and byte-flip variations (like FITS, WIT16 was a Big-Endian format, whereas the popular PDP-11s were Little-Endian [remember, this was still 6 months before the VAX]). --- Preparing for the Basic FITS Agreement --- The Astronomy section of the NSF (US National Science Foundation] organized a meeting whose primary purpose was to try to find a strategy for making image processing computing capability more widely available in the US astronomy community. The meeting was held at KPNO in Tucson in January 1979. During the course of the meeting I said something about the problem of image interchange formats, and about our two years of experience with the prototype formats. The chairman assigned a task force of Bob Burns (NRAO), Ed Groth (Princeton) and me (KPNO) to work on the problem. My folder contains a copy of a handwritten letter from me to Bob Burns dated 29 January 1979: "I am enclosing my little writeup of the WIT16 format [IPPS Memo #3 plus the word/pixel size memo of 1976]. If I were to do it again I would consider 1440 bytes_per_record = 18 80-character card images. I would then suggest that the header record(s) be coded card images, perhaps even with one parameter per line NPIXEL = 512 (NUMBER OF PIXELS PER ROW) NROWS = 768 (NUMBER OF ROWS) etc. so that the header would be self-documenting. Ron Harten sent out a description of his ideas and I think Eric Greisen got a copy." There is also a copy of a memo from Barry Clark (NRAO-VLA) to Bob Burns; it is undated, but my copy says I received it from Burns on 09 March: "I like the style of Don Wells' longhand remarks better than that of the formal memo [IPPS#3, i.e. WIT16 with its binary header]. A single physical block size of either 1440 or 2880 Bytes sounds to me like a reasonable record length. Shorter is inefficient use of tape, longer will encounter buffer problems in very small systems. I suggest the header information shoud correspond to some reasonable standard, with keywords being the main definition effort. I suggest as a standard for the header that keywords be limited to six characters, be followed by '=', ' = ', '= ' or ' =' and then by a single value. A string of blanks would be equivalent to a single blank. Values would be in the form for Fortran 77 list directed I/O...." Barry included a page titled "Suggested List of Keywords", five of which made it into the final Basic FITS Agreement: BSCALE, BUNIT, OBJECT, HISTOR and COMENT (note that Barry proposed six character keywords). --- The meeting at the VLA 26-29 March 1979 --- There is a memo in the file from me to Steve Strom and Geoffrey Burbidge (then Director of KPNO); the date is 8 March 1979 and the subject is "Data Tape Interchange Format Standardization Effort": "One result of the January 26th NSF Image Analysis Meeting was the conclusion that representatives of the major data acquisition and processing sites, e.g. KPNO and NRAO, should endeavor to establish a common data tape format so as to facilitate the communication of digital data, particularly imagery, among astronomers. Peter Boyce [then head of the national centers section of NSF Astronomy] appointed Bob Burns (NRAO), Ed Groth (representing the Space Telescope), and me to form a committee to begin the process. We have corresponded during the past month in order to exchange ideas, particularly regarding my provisional tape format (called WIT16) which KPNO has used to write many of the image data tapes for visiting astronomers to take back to their hime institutions since March 1977. Bob Burns has now invited Ed Groth and me to join him and the VLA programmers at the VLA on Wednesday, March 28th, to begin detailed discussions of tape formats. Interchange of digital imagery among astronomers is becoming common. I believe that it is important for KPNO to encourage standardization agreements in this area, and so I am asking for approval of this trip to Socorro on the 27th and 28th of March." A note on my copy of the memo says "approved 12 March". Another page has notes of a conversation with Bob Burns on 14 March, including this action item: "will send NBS standards 1976, NATO format". The travel voucher which I filed at KPNO [now NOAO] in April 1979 for the trip is attached to the memo. Inflation has been substantial, of course: the airfare cost only US$106. My travel expenses were $54.49, which included a fancy meal in Albuquerque for $19.71, and one of those incomparable steak dinners at the Eagle Ranch in Datil, New Mexico, for only $8.46. The negotiations began with a meeting with most of the VLA computing staff. Eric Greisen and I were charged with producing an agreement, and we retired to the VLA conference room in the cafeteria building. Luck was with us --- our personalities meshed well enough that we could negotiate -- and progress was fast. We had the great advantage of knowing the outcomes of the two prior protoyping experiments. We had plenty of good advice from our colleagues (e.g. Barry Clark's memo). Finally, Ron Harten was present in the room with us, in spirit, as I told him in a letter some weeks later: "Eric and I missed you when we met at the VLA on March 27. But we had your document from last year open on the table in front of us as we struggled with the coordinate and brightness unit specifications. We adopted your concept of the generalized coordinate scheme. Note that our block size is the same as the one you preferred last year. We think that alphanumeric keywords are much preferable to the numeric codes that you and I used in our old schemes. The use of E-notation for values eliminates the need for logarithms. We hope that you approve of our efforts..." My copy of the Basic FITS Agreement is a five-page handwritten document dated 29 March 1979, mostly in Eric Greisen's handwriting. About half of the memo consists of specifications for the reserved keywords of Basic FITS. The "special records convention", which is the basis for Random Groups and Generalized Extensions, is in my handwriting: "The set of all records associated with an image shall be concluded by a tapemark. Note that this does not preclude new record types being invented in the future, except that they must occur *after* the data array records..." There was a final meeting on March 28 in which Eric and I presented our Agreement to the VLA computing staff, and they commented on it. The principal business of that final session was to choose the name; a considerable number of people from all over the world were present, and it was agreed that "FITS" would be reasonably pronounceable and not obscene in any of the languages known to those present. From start to finish the negotiation process had taken about 36 hours. --- Test tapes, draft of the Basic FITS paper --- There is a cover letter from me dated 10 May 1979, and addressed to R.Harten (Westerbork), R.Burns (NRAO-Charlottesville), R.Hjellming (NRAO-VLA-Socorro), E.Groth (Princeton), A.Moffett (CalTech), P.Crane (ESO-Geneva [this was before ESO moved to Garching]) and R.Talbot (Rice): "I have prepared this initial draft of the FITS report, as instructed by the group at the VLA on March 28. Please examine it for misstatements,.... Eric Greisen reports that the first tapes have been exported from NRAO to a user at another site. At KPNO we are constructing a program to read the first FITS tape.. sent to us by Greisen, and we will then build a program to generate a test tape to send back to him. I will be giving a talk about FITS at the International Workshop on Image Processing in Astronomy, to be held at Trieste, 4-8 June 1979." --- FITS became the de facto standard --- The file contains a letter from me to Eric Greisen dated 9 July 1979: "You have done a wonderful job on my crude first draft. I have marked a few typos and questionable details on the copy which is enclosed. Ron Harten had a new scheme ready for Trieste, but he dropped it as soon as he received my first draft. I think it is likely that it will be supported by numerous sites. There was a considerable interest in the idea at Trieste, and I have already sent out several copies of your draft. Our FITS reading program has been operational for more than a month, but our writing program is not yet ready because the programmer [Jan Schwitters, now with the GONG project at NOAO] has gone on vacation. I hope to send you a tape by about the first week of August." Another letter dated 2nd August 1979 is from Denis Warne (Mount Stromlo and Siding Spring Observatories) to me: "...I have given the proposal some consideration and would like to add Stromlo's support to FITS as an interchange format... we have decided to modify our local format so that the astronomical description resembles your header as described in the attached memo..." This was a very important endorsement, because the Australian group had invested considerable effort in the design of their own standard format, culminating in an 11-page paper dated 29 May 1979 and titled "Standard Astronomical Data Format.." Their sophisticated proposal included the ability to encapsulate multiple data objects in a file object, a capability which was added to FITS by the Generalized Extensions Agreement of 1984. They proposed to encode ancillary information using a keyword=value mechanism, analogous to FITS. The final paragraph of their paper begins with the sentence "A subset of the format will come into operation at the Stromlo Observatory during the third quarter, 1979." My memory is that the MSSSO-format paper immediately preceded the presentation on FITS at the Trieste meeting. NRAO and NOAO had software in operation (my talk included slides of NRAO radio imagery >from the first FITS tape, photographed from KPNO's IPPS display), but MSSSO still had only a paper proposal at that moment, and so they joined us. It could easily have happened the other way around: they might have implemented before us, and the astronomy community would now be using some variation on their design. The similarities of the two proposals presented at the Trieste meeting made it obvious that interchange formats were an idea whose time had come. --- Coincidences of Historic Events --- Afficionados of historical trivia will want to know that *three* famous events happened on March 28, 1979: * Birthdate of the Basic FITS Agreement * Conservatives win British election; Margaret Thacher new Prime Minister * Nuclear power plant accident at Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania, releases radioactivity -- Donald C. Wells Associate Scientist dwells at nrao.edu National Radio Astronomy Observatory +1-804-296-0277 520 Edgemont Road Fax= +1-804-296-0278 Charlottesville, Virginia 22903-2475 USA 78:31.1W, 38:02.2N From pence at heawk1.gsfc.nasa.gov Mon Mar 30 20:57:56 1992 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3456" "Mon" "30" "March" "1992" "23:27:39" "GMT" " William Pence" "pence at heawk1.gsfc.nasa.gov " "<1189820 at toto.iv>" "82" "FITSIO V3.20" nil nil nil "3" "1992033023:27:39" "FITSIO V3.20" (number " " mark " William Pence Mar 30 82/3456 " thread-indent "\"FITSIO V3.20\"\n") nil] nil) Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Nntp-Posting-Host: heawk1.gsfc.nasa.gov Organization: Goddard Space Flight Center From: pence at heawk1.gsfc.nasa.gov ( William Pence) Subject: FITSIO V3.20 Date: Mon, 30 Mar 1992 23:27:39 GMT FITSIO - Version 3.20 30 March 1992 This is to announce that Version 3.20 of the FITSIO package is now available. FITSIO provides a very powerful yet simple Fortran subroutine interface for reading and writing FITS format files. The great majority of the FITSIO subroutines are written in strict ANSI standard Fortran, and a small set of machine-specific subroutines are also provided to use FITSIO on most commonly used computers and workstations. FITSIO supports the FITS ASCII and binary table extensions as well as the proposed new IMAGE extension. This new 3.20 Version of FITSIO contains many enhancements over the previous release, including: - Support for the proposed new IMAGE extension. - Support for bit and byte columns in binary tables. Subroutines are now provided to read or write individual bits in these columns. - New capability to dymanically increase the size of the FITS file if more space is needed for new keywords. FITSIO will also recover and re-use space that is freed when a keyword is deleted. These enhancements now make it practical to use FITS format files in processing environments where the contents of existing FITS files need to be modified. - Improved byte-swapping algorithm in the VAX/VMS version; it is about 6 times faster than before. - Significantly smaller executable code size obtained by decreasing the size of several large common blocks. - Several new subroutines: - to read or write any contiguous rectangular subset of pixels in an N-dimensional FITS image. - to modify the value and/or comment string in an existing keyword record - to write the current system date into a DATE keyword in dd/mm/yy format - to return a descriptive text string corresponding to a given status error number - to copy an entire extension from an input FITS file to an output file - Several bugs in the previous version have been identified and fixed. - Improved documentation and more example programs to illustrate how to use the FITSIO library. This new version of FITSIO is 100% upwardly compatible with the previous 3.10 version, so existing programs should run without any modification. The FITSIO software, documentation, and example programs are available via anonymous ftp from: ftp tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov or ftp 128.183.8.77 Then type the following: ftp> user anonymous Password: [type your username as a password] ftp> cd pub/fitsio3 [to move to the version 3 subdirectory] ftp> ls [to see a list of the available files] ftp> get read.me [contains latest information about FITSIO] ftp> get fitsio.doc [complete user documentation] ftp> get ... [get any additional desired files] ftp> quit Alternatively, the FITSIO files may be copied from following SPAN node: NDADSA::HEASARC:[EXOSAT.XANADU.FITS.FITSIO] -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. William Pence (Internet) pence at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov HEASARC (SPAN) LHEAVX::PENCE Code 668 Telephone: (301)286-4599 NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD 20771 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From bschlesinger at nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov Tue Mar 31 22:59:55 1992 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1496" "Tue" "31" "March" "1992" "18:50:00" "GMT" "Barry Schlesinger" "bschlesinger at nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov " "<2770262 at toto.iv>" "35" "Re: HST images of Io" nil nil nil "3" "1992033118:50:00" "HST images of Io" (number " " mark " Barry Schlesinger Mar 31 35/1496 " thread-indent "\"Re: HST images of Io\"\n") nil] nil) Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Summary: Four quarters, three dimensions News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41 Nntp-Posting-Host: nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov Organization: NASA - Goddard Space Flight Center From: bschlesinger at nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov (Barry Schlesinger) Subject: Re: HST images of Io Date: Tue, 31 Mar 1992 18:50:00 GMT In article <1992Mar31.163809.9182 at elroy.jpl.nasa.gov>, baalke at kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov writes... > >I understand that the Hubble images are in a slightly different FITS format >than your standard FITS image. I would say, rather, that they are in standard FITS format, but not stored as a simple two-dimensional array. >I don't know exactly what the difference is, >but the Hubble FITS seems to be split into four parts, What is happening is that a 1600x1600 image is being split into four pieces and stored as an 800x800x4 array. One can merge the four quarters back into the original picture if one knows how it was done. >and seems to be >taking advantage some part of the FITS standard not normally used. This particular division in four is not common usage. But it is not unusual for FITS primary data arrays to be of more than two dimensions. For multicolor maps, one frequent approach is to make color the third dimension. >Being own of the programmers of IMDISP, I was well aware that IMDISP wouldn't >display the Hubble images, though it would display other FITS images >... I can't speak to IMDISP specifically, but many of the packages that convert FITS arrays to pictures can't handle arrays of more than two dimensions (NAXIS>2). Even for those that can, the best one could reasonably expect would be four quarter pictures, as a general package would not recognize the particular Hubble organization. Barry Schlesinger NSSDC/NOST FITS Support Office From uk1 at spacsun.rice.edu Tue Mar 31 23:00:31 1992 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1216" "" "31" "March" "1992" "19:51:57" "GMT" "Paul A. Scowen" "uk1 at spacsun.rice.edu " "<156196 at toto.iv>" "27" "Re: HST images of Io" nil nil nil "3" "1992033119:51:57" "HST images of Io" (number " " mark " Paul A. Scowen Mar 31 27/1216 " thread-indent "\"Re: HST images of Io\"\n") nil] nil) Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Reply-To: uk1 at spacsun.rice.edu (Paul A. Scowen) Organization: Dept. of Space Physics, Rice University, Houston TX From: uk1 at spacsun.rice.edu (Paul A. Scowen) Subject: Re: HST images of Io Date: 31 Mar 1992 19:51:57 GMT The HST images available on the s.a.h. anonymous archive were provided by Ed Groth of the Princeton group, and are in GIF format. Several viewers exist for this type of image including xv and xloadimage. For your info, the available images and accompanying file are: crsplit.ps.Z compressed Postscript file containing a paper on Cosmic-Ray rejection in WFPC images, by Ed Groth at Princeton. eta_carina.gif public domain image of the Eta Carina Nebula (GIF format) hstori* public domain emission line image of the Orion Nebula, and accompanying documentation explaining the format of the image jupiter.gif public domain image of Jupiter n1275.gif PD image of NGC 1275 satws* several PD images of the storm observed on the surface of Saturn by the Space Telescope, together with explanatory notes (.doc) -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Paul A. Scowen INTERNET: uk1 at spacsun.rice.edu Department of Space Physics & Astronomy DECnet: RICE::SCOWEN Rice University, P.O. Box 1892 Tel: (713) 527-8101 x2433 Houston, TX 77251-1892 FAX: (713) 285-5143 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From warnock at nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov Tue Mar 31 23:01:10 1992 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1050" "" "31" "March" "92" "21:32:00" "GMT" "Archie Warnock" "warnock at nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov " "<532499 at toto.iv>" "17" "Re: HST images of Io" "^From:" nil nil "3" "1992033121:32:00" "HST images of Io" (number " " mark " Archie Warnock Mar 31 17/1050 " thread-indent "\"Re: HST images of Io\"\n") nil] nil) Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits Organization: Hughes STX - NASA/NCDS News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41 Nntp-Posting-Host: nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov From: warnock at nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov (Archie Warnock) Subject: Re: HST images of Io Date: 31 Mar 92 21:32:00 GMT In article <1992Mar31.094131.1 at vaxr.sscl.uwo.ca>, stooke at vaxr.sscl.uwo.ca writes... >SAOIMAGE on a DECstation. The other images, one a 'fake' and the other two >the HST images after reconstruction, could not be displayed in either >IMDISP or SAOIMAGE. Can anybody who has looked at these images indicate >to me how I might be able to display them? Thanks.... Mystery apparently solved via E-mail. Phil tells me that the other images have BITPIX=-32, indicating they are floating point data, under the IEEE agreement. IMDISP doesn't do floating point images - at least, not yet. We're working on a (hopefully) rational approach to scaling them down to 8-bit integers for display, particularly in the absence of scale factors in the header. Any suggestions? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Archie Warnock Internet: warnock at nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov -- Hughes STX SPAN: NSSDC::WARNOCK -- NASA/GSFC "Hail To The Redskins!" From warnock at nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov Tue Mar 31 23:01:44 1992 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["869" "Tue" "31" "March" "1992" "17:46:00" "GMT" "Archie Warnock" "warnock at nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov " "<1620142 at toto.iv>" "14" "Re: FITS read and write on PC" nil nil nil "3" "1992033117:46:00" "FITS read and write on PC" (number " " mark " Archie Warnock Mar 31 14/869 " thread-indent "\"Re: FITS read and write on PC\"\n") nil] nil) Newsgroups: sci.astro.fits News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41 Nntp-Posting-Host: nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov Organization: Hughes STX - NASA/NCDS Distribution: sci.astro.fits From: warnock at nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov (Archie Warnock) Subject: Re: FITS read and write on PC Date: Tue, 31 Mar 1992 17:46:00 GMT In article <1992Mar28.214443.28076 at csun.edu>, swalton at aurora.csun.edu (Stephen Walton) writes... >Get a copy of PCVISTA. It is a complete, small, FITS-based image processing >package for PC's from UC Berkeley. Not sure of the current cost; you can Unless the I/O has been extensively modified from the version documented in PASP, it's hardly complete. It has/had a number of restrictions on the types of data it handled, the keywords present in the header and the names of the files it would access. It does, however, include an impressive number of image processing functions. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Archie Warnock Internet: warnock at nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov -- Hughes STX SPAN: NSSDC::WARNOCK -- NASA/GSFC "Hail To The Redskins!" From dwells at azalea.cx.nrao.edu Thu Mar 5 07:38:31 1992 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["20574" "Thu" "5" "March" "1992" "05:59:57" "GMT" "Don Wells" "dwells at azalea.cx.nrao.edu " nil "356" "RESULT: sci.astro.fits passes 311:14" "^From:" nil nil "3" nil nil nil nil] nil) Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,sci.astro,sci.space,alt.sci.astro.fits,sci.astro.hubble Followup-To: news.groups Nntp-Posting-Host: cs.rpi.edu Organization: National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Charlottesville, VA. From: dwells at azalea.cx.nrao.edu (Don Wells) Subject: RESULT: sci.astro.fits passes 311:14 Date: Thu, 5 Mar 1992 05:59:57 GMT Name: sci.astro.fits Status: Unmoderated Charter: This newsgroup will provide a forum for the discussion of all topics concerning the FITS [Flexible Image Transport System] data format. The newsgroup will be interfaced to the Email exploder fitsbits at fits.cx.nrao.edu so that traffic originating on either the newsgroup on the exploder will be automatically transmitted to the other. This new newsgroup will replace existing newsgroup alt.sci.astro.fits. Reference Entry: sci.astro.fits Issues related to FITS [Flexible Image Transport System] This newsgroup received 311 YES votes and 14 NO votes during the voting period (11 February to 23:59_EST 02 March 1992). As the excess of YES votes over NO votes was more than 100, and more than 2/3 of the votes were YES, this newsgroup should be created. The following 311 people voted YES: adelmans at citadel.bitnet anderson at atnf.csiro.au anw at anwsun.phya.utoledo.edu bob at ipac.caltech.edu bpirenne at eso.org bschlesinger at nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov c1796 at slvaxa.umsl.edu cbiemes at noao.edu cguirao at eso.org chipman at grossc.gsfc.nasa.gov collierm at astro.byu.edu colorado at stars.gsfc.nasa.gov davidsen at crdos1.crd.ge.com dreher at bkyast.berkeley.edu ed at astro.umd.edu fitz at noao.edu fmurtagh at eso.org francois at simbad.u-strasbg.fr gondwana at athena.mit.edu hmadorf at eso.org howard at ssl.msfc.nasa.gov jjk at astro.umd.edu jlovell at physvax.phys.utas.edu.au jmcgaha at pimacc.pima.edu joycemr%cfa8.decnet at harvard.harvard.edu ke at laban.uu.se kemper at nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov marschal at cc.gettysburg.edu mary at jach.hawaii.edu mh563x1d at ducvax.auburn.edu m_hayden at pluto.cc.gettysburg.edu nafia at chimay.cma.fr neff at stars.gsfc.nasa.gov ovdluhe at eso.org pdierckx at eso.org pgrosbol at eso.org phys218 at csc.canterbury.ac.nz pshuang at athena.mit.edu pwb at isaac.phys.unsw.oz.au ralbrech at eso.org repalmer at oread.cc.ukans.edu rhook at eso.org rick at ipac.caltech.edu sysevm%nsrvan.uucp%clark.uucp at clark.edu varsik at suncub.bbso.caltech.edu w3whw at scfmvs.bitnet weiland at aruba.gsfc.nasa.gov whb at hoh-2.att.com wls at astro.umd.edu Lenny Abbey labbey at gtri01.gatech.edu Steve Abrams abrams%cfa0 at harvard.harvard.edu David Adler dadler at negra.aoc.nrao.edu Moani Akana akana at cfht.hawaii.edu Miguel Albrecht malbrech at eso.org Michael Albrow phys170 at csc.canterbury.ac.nz Steve Allen sla at helios.ucsc.edu Scott Allendorf sca at space.physics.uiowa.edu Shaun Amy samy at atnf.csiro.au Keith M. Andress andress at igor.siemens.com Keith Arnaud kaa at rosserv.gsfc.nasa.gov Carlo Baffa baffa at arcetri.astro.it Bruce Balick balick at tahoma.phys.washington.edu Tom Bania bania at buast4.bu.edu Timothy Banks bankst at kauri.vuw.ac.nz Klaus Banse kbanse at eso.org Jeannette Barnes jbarnes at noao.edu dave barrett dbb at riscy.nyo.dec.com Paul Bartholdi bartho at scsun.unige.ch Fritz Benedict fritz at dorrit.as.utexas.edu Mark Birkinshaw mb1%cfarg2.decnet at harvard.harvard.edu Jeff Bloch 103283 at sstdp1.lanl.gov Uwe Bonnes bon at lte.e-technik.uni-erlangen.de Michael Eric Boschat andromed at atm.dal.ca Jeffrey Oliver Breen job at cfa236.harvard.edu Daniel Briggs dbriggs at zia.aoc.nrao.edu Lawrence E. Brown elwin at gamma.phys.clemson.edu Liz Bryson bryson at cfht.hawaii.edu Markus Buchhorn markus at merlin.anu.edu.au Mike Buckles buckles at cfht.hawaii.edu Sinclair Budd cmaae50 at cc.ic.ac.uk Frank Bull bull%pyrrus.uucp at noao.edu Dave Van Buren dave at tapir.caltech.edu Ann Burgess aburgess at atnf.csiro.au Bob Burns bburns at polaris.cv.nrao.edu Howard Bushouse bushouse at iuegtc.dnet.nasa.gov Mark Calabretta mcalabre at macabre.cv.nrao.edu Hulya CalIskan jk017 at triuvm11.bitnet Bill Carson brighton%phuket.uucp%pixar.uucp at next.com Carol Christian carolc at ssl.berkeley.edu Chris Churchill starglob at helios.ucsc.edu Chris Clark chris at cfht.hawaii.edu Rick Coates rick at ateq.com Bruce C Cogan bcc900 at cscgpo.anu.edu.au Judith Cohen jlc at deimos.caltech.edu Jim Cole jimc at 3cpu.rain.com Mike Collins mcollins at phx.mcd.mot.com Mark E. Cornell cornell at puck.as.utexas.edu Bill Cotton bcotton at gorilla.cv.nrao.edu Carl Covatto ccovatto at jupiter.nmt.edu Dennis Crabtree crabtree at dao.nrc.ca Malcolm J. Currie cur at starlink.rutherford.ac.uk Chris J. Davis chris at airdata.socal.com Mike Davis davis at naic.edu Lindsey Davis davis at noao.edu Carl A. Dobson cad at ssl.berkeley.edu Art Dong atos at cac.washington.edu Elwood C. Downey e_downey at hwking.cca.cr.rockwell.com Frank Drake drake at dragon.ulowell.edu Chris Dudley dudley at galileo.ifa.hawaii.edu Dying vesper%luna.decnet at indiana.edu Ron Ekers rekers at atnf.csiro.au Rick Ellis rick at ofa123.fidonet.org Albrecht Ernst ernst at infpav4.kfk.de Ian Evans evans at fos.stsci.edu Martin Ewing ewing-martin at cs.yale.edu Allen Farris farris at stsci.edu Eric D. Feigelson edf at astro.psu.edu Tony Ferro tony at quasar.la.asu.edu david fisher fish at helios.ucsc.edu Chris Flatters cflatter at greystoke.cv.nrao.edu Murray Forbes forbesmc at matai.vuw.ac.nz Thierry Forveille forveill at gag.observ-gr.fr Per Friberg friberg at jach.hawaii.edu Priscilla Frisch frisch at galadriel.uchicago.edu Terry Gaetz gaetz at julian.uwo.ca Bob Garwood bgarwood at sngldsh.cv.nrao.edu FRANK GHIGO fghigo at lodestar.gb.nrao.edu Gilligan pcp2g at karma.astro.virginia.edu Frank Giovane fgiovane at nhqvax.dnet.nasa.gov John Glaspey glaspey at cfht.hawaii.edu Brian Glendenning bglenden at colobus.cv.nrao.edu Orhan GOKCOL ucgokcol at tritu.bitnet Daniel Golombek golombek at stsci.edu James P. Goltz frost at helix.nih.gov Steve Grandi grandi at noao.edu Andrew Gray agray at atnf.csiro.au James T. Green jgreen at nike.calpoly.edu Eric Greisen egreisen at polaris.cv.nrao.edu Gerry Grieve grieve at geop.ubc.ca Gaston Groisman gaston at cpsc.ucalgary.ca Edward J. Groth groth at pupgg.princeton.edu Bob Hanisch hanisch at stsci.edu Wendy Harrison harrison at cfht.hawaii.edu Booth Hartley booth at ipac.caltech.edu Jeff Hayes hayes at stsci.edu Greg Hennessy gsh7w at fermi.clas.virginia.edu Tony Hewitt hewitt at aslpet.med.ge.com Coleen Hickman hickman at cfht.hawaii.edu Mike Hicks hicksm at lpl.arizona.edu ROBERT S. HILL bhill at stars.gsfc.nasa.gov Tom Hocking starman at unc.bitnet Phil Hodge hodge at stsci.edu Bradford Holden holden at helios.ucsc.edu John Horne horne at cfht.hawaii.edu Julie A Hovencamp zbsy at cornellc.cit.cornell.edu Victor Hughes hughesv at qucdn.queensu.ca Stephen Hulbert hulbert at stsci.edu Gareth Hunt ghunt at nrao.edu Dr. Albert Hybl hybl at umbc4.umbc.edu Takashi Isobe ti at space.mit.edu Peter D. Jackson jackson at cobecl.dnet.nasa.gov Markku Jaeaeskelaeinen t89mja at lucifer.tdb.uu.se Dave Jenner davej at phast.phys.washington.edu Diab Jerius dj at pelf.harvard.edu Justin Jonas phjj at ruchem.ru.ac.za Dean C Josephson dean at cfht.hawaii.edu Joel C. Justen joel%crpi.uucp at uunet.uu.net Sheldon Kay shelly at iscnvx.lmsc.lockheed.com Markus G. Kempf kempf at rhrk.uni-kl.de John Kerr john at cfht.hawaii.edu Bob Kibrick kibrick at helios.ucsc.edu james kiley jkiley at andy.bgsu.edu Edward King eking at herca.jpl.nasa.gov N PAUL KUIN kuin at nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov Tom Kuiper kuiper at kuiper.jpl.nasa.gov Krishna Kunchithapadam krisna at cs.wisc.edu Lukas Labhardt labhardt at urz.unibas.ch Francois Lacoursiere d353426 at uqam.bitnet Glen Langston glangsto at saips.cv.nrao.edu MICHAEL CHRISTOPHER LAPAGLIA m953618 at mcdonald.nadn.navy.mil Robin C. LaPasha ruslan%ecsvax.uucp at uncecs.edu Charles Lawrence crl at eccles.caltech.edu D.A. Leahy leahy at iras.ucalgary.ca Zoltan Levay levay at stsci.edu Paul Leyland pcl at oxford.ac.uk Greg Lindahl gl8f at fermi.clas.virginia.edu Peter Linde peter at astro.lu.se Bob Link link at cfht.hawaii.edu Joseph St. Lucas stlucas at gdwest.gd.com Lars Lundahl lundahl at oso.chalmers.se William Lupton william at keck.hawaii.edu Dyer Lytle lytle at noao.edu Barney Magrath magrath at cfht.hawaii.edu nakano makoto mnakano at oita-cc.cc.oita-u.ac.jp Eric Mandel eric at cfa242.harvard.edu Ralph Marson rmarson at rp.csiro.au George Martin gmartin at zia.aoc.nrao.edu Mark McCaughrean mjm at as.arizona.edu Rick McGonegal mcgonegr at noao.edu Stephen Meatheringham sjm at merlin.anu.edu.au David Mehringer dmehring at zia.aoc.nrao.edu Tom Metcalf metcalf at maile.ifa.hawaii.edu Ken Mighell mighell at merlin.anu.edu.au Eugene F. Milone milone at acs.ucalgary.ca Stefan Mochnacki stefan at vela.astro.utoronto.ca David Moffett dpm at cs.purdue.edu Luis E Montenegro luis at sci.ccny.cuny.edu Christopher B. Moore cmoore at alioth.mit.edu Christopher Mullins cfm2h at fulton.seas.virginia.edu J. R. Munoz_Peiro jmunoz at estsaa.dnet.nasa.gov KAYLENE MURDOCH phys166 at csc.canterbury.ac.nz Dan Murphy dpm at dtalk.cwa.com Pat Murphy pmurphy at nrao.edu Steve Murray ssm at cfa244.harvard.edu Robert Mutel rlm at sunlight.physics.uiowa.edu Matthew J. Nelson nelson at larry.sal.wisc.edu Mike Newberry newberry at as.arizona.edu Dave Newman daven at notable.com Patrick L. Nolan pln at egret1.stanford.edu Ray Norris rnorris at atnf.csiro.au Michael Olberg olberg at oso.chalmers.se Nancy Oliversen noliversen at iuegtc.dnet.nasa.gov Eric C. Olson ericco at ssl.berkeley.edu Bruce Oneel oneel at arupa.gsfc.nasa.gov Patricio Ortiz ortiz at vela.astro.utoronto.ca Paul Palmer palmerp at math.orst.edu Aliza R. Panitz buglady at silver.lcs.mit.edu Scott Paswaters paswater at pele.colorado.edu Harry Payne payne at stsci.edu Tim Pearson tjp at eccles.caltech.edu Jeffrey A. Pedelty pedelty at jansky.gsfc.nasa.gov William Pence pence at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov George D. Phillies phillies at wpi.wpi.edu The Daft Pict mclean at shadow.stsci.edu Joe Plassmann joep at asgard.lpl.arizona.edu Jose Daniel Ponz jdp at vilspa.dnet.nasa.gov Tony Putman tonyp at ucthpx.uct.ac.za Ernst Raimond exr at nfra.nl Kavan Ratnatunga kavan at merlin.anu.edu.au Somak Raychaudhury somak at cfa203.harvard.edu Gail Reichert reichert at rosgip.gsfc.nasa.gov Mike "IR" Ressler ressler at galileo.ifa.hawaii.edu Brian Reynolds reynolds at fsg.com GUENTER R. RIEGLER griegler at nasamail.nasa.gov P. von Ballmos-E. del Rio pvb at cix.cict.fr Greg N. Roberts roberts at orion.arc.nasa.gov Andreas Roemer andi at comet.gold.sub.org Chris Rogers crogers at drao.nrc.ca Steve Rooke rooke at noao.edu Arnold Rots arots at xebec.gsfc.nasa.gov Robert Rutledge rutledge at space.mit.edu Gustaf Rydbeck gustaf at oso.chalmers.se Skip Schaller skip at as.arizona.edu ERWIN SCHMERLING eschmerling at nasamail.nasa.gov Juergen Schmidt p137jsm at mpirbn.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de Paul A. Scowen uk1 at spacsun.rice.edu Rob Seaman seaman at noao.edu Ajai Sehgal ajai at sce.carleton.ca Nigel Sharp sharp at vela.tuc.noao.edu Nishimura Shiro rnishim at c1.mtk.nao.ac.jp Dave Shone dshone at nrao.edu Steinn Sigurdsson steinly at topaz.ucsc.edu Michal Simon msimon at ccmail.sunysb.edu Jhs John Simonetti jhs at astro.phys.vt.edu Bobby Song song at cfht.hawaii.edu Ignatios Souvatzis souva at 28.808.dnet.nasa.gov Robert W. Spiker rws3n at astsun9.astro.virginia.edu Ralf Stephan hagbard at ark.abg.sub.org Carolyn Stern stern at jasra.harvard.edu Peter B. Stetson stetson at dao.nrc.ca Mark Stevens stevens at stsci.edu Thomas Stingl stingl at gate.fzi.de Cliff Stoll stoll at ocf.berkeley.edu Jose Suarez suarez at as.arizona.edu Denis Sullivan sullivan at emf.vuw.ac.nz Ralph Sutherland ralph at merlin.anu.edu.au Peter Teuben teuben at astro.umd.edu William Thompson thompson at serts.gsfc.nasa.gov Rich Thomson rthomson at dsd.es.com Michael H. Tipping greywolf at vesta.unm.edu Doug Tody tody at noao.edu Tanabe Toshihiko ltanabe at c1.mtk.nao.ac.jp Dean Tucker tucker at helios.ucsc.edu Tasso Tzioumis atzioumi at atnf.csiro.au Frank Valdes valdes at noao.edu Dirk Valk dirk at spacsun.rice.edu Tas van.Ommen tas at tasman.cc.utas.edu.au Any noun can be verbed warnock at nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov Edward Vielmetti emv at msen.com WOLFGANG VOGES whv at mpe.dnet.nasa.gov P.T. Wallace ptw at starlink.rutherford.ac.uk Stephen Walton swalton at solaria.csun.edu Alan Watson alan at uwast.astro.wisc.edu George M. Weaver weaver at astro.psu.edu Don Wells dwells at fits.cx.nrao.edu Mark Wieringa mwiering at atnf.csiro.au Dan Wilcox wilcox at cfht.hawaii.edu Tony Willis twillis at drao.nrc.ca Christopher Willmer cnaw at helios.ucsc.edu rob woiccak rewoicc at erenj.bitnet Donna Womble womble at cass05.dnet.nasa.gov Al Wootten awootten at polaris.cv.nrao.edu Diana Worrall dmw at cfa246.harvard.edu Guy Worthey worthey at helios.ucsc.edu Jim Wright jwright at cfht.hawaii.edu Ryan J. Wyatt rjw at regulus.rice.edu Bill Wyatt wyatt at cfa214.harvard.edu Peter Yee yee at spectre.arc.nasa.gov A. Young ayoung at eso.org Nelson Zarate nelson at stsci.edu Yun Fei Zhang zhang at buast0.bu.edu The following 14 people voted NO: snielsen at computer-science.strathclyde.ac.uk James C. Barrett barrett at cc.gatech.edu BI08000 bi08 at utep.bitnet P.J. Boulay pjb4288 at ultb.isc.rit.edu Paulo da Costa dacosta at prl.philips.nl Helge Hauglin helgeha at ifi.uio.no Roland Kaltefleiter kaltef at theo-physik.uni-kiel.dbp.de Brian Kenney kenney at hsi86.hsi.com Quincey Koziol koziol at ncsa.uiuc.edu Ed McGuire emcguire at ccad.uiowa.edu a. m. rushton rushton at stsci.edu Dave V. Schaller schaller at hsi86.hsi.com Paul J. Schinder schinder at leprss.gsfc.nasa.gov SNEERINGER acs97393 at zach.fit.edu -- Donald C. Wells Associate Scientist dwells at nrao.edu National Radio Astronomy Observatory +1-804-296-0277 520 Edgemont Road Fax= +1-804-296-0278 Charlottesville, Virginia 22903-2475 USA 78:31.1W, 38:02.2N