From iaufwg-request Fri Sep 9 10:19:44 1994 X-VM-Summary-Format: "%n %*%a %-17.17F %-3.3m %2d %4l/%-5c %I\"%s\"\n" X-VM-Labels: nil X-VM-VHeader: ("Resent-" "From:" "Sender:" "To:" "Apparently-To:" "Cc:" "Subject:" "Date:") nil X-VM-Bookmark: 2 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1108" "Fri" " 9" "September" "1994" "16:19:46" "+0200" "Preben Grosbol" "pgrosbol@eso.org" nil "27" "IAU General Assembly in Den Haag" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil (number " " mark " Preben Grosbol Sep 9 27/1108 " thread-indent "\"IAU General Assembly in Den Haag\"\n") nil] nil) Received: by fits.cv.nrao.edu (4.1/DDN-DLB/1.5) id AA06576; Fri, 9 Sep 94 10:19:44 EDT Return-Path: Message-Id: <9409091419.AA24827@ns2.hq.eso.org> From: Preben Grosbol Sender: iaufwg-request@fits.CV.NRAO.EDU To: iaufwg@fits.CV.NRAO.EDU Cc: fitsbits@fits.CV.NRAO.EDU Subject: IAU General Assembly in Den Haag Date: Fri, 09 Sep 1994 16:19:46 +0200 Dear Colleagues, There were several meeting related to the IAU FITS Working Group during the IAU General Assembly in Den Haag Aug. 17-24, 1994. The two most important points were: 1) In the business meeting of Commission 5 on 18.8, the new structure was discussed. It will associate the FITS Working Group to the Working Group on Astronomical Data. It was emphasized in the discussion that FITS WG has the authority to maintain the FITS standard and to review, approve and maintain future extensions to FITS (ref. resolution B2 of the 20th General Assembly). This infers that the FITS Group will have a very long life span to ensure the long term stability of FITS. 2) Don Wells was elected new Chairman for the FITS Working Group with Ernst Raimond as Vice-chairman. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your support and work in the FITS Working Group during the last years. It is a pleasure to wish both Don and Ernst all the best with respect to the many important issues to be discussed in the coming years. Best regards Preben Grosbol From dwells Fri Sep 9 23:18:26 1994 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2821" "Fri" " 9" "September" "1994" "23:18:25" "EDT" "Don Wells" "dwells" nil "63" "Re: IAU General Assembly in Den Haag" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil (number " " mark " Don Wells Sep 9 63/2821 " thread-indent "\"Re: IAU General Assembly in Den Haag\"\n") nil] nil) Received: by fits (4.1/DDN-DLB/1.5) id AA07390; Fri, 9 Sep 94 23:18:26 EDT Return-Path: Message-Id: <9409100318.AA07384@fits> From: dwells (Don Wells) Sender: iaufwg-request@fits.CV.NRAO.EDU To: iaufwg Subject: Re: IAU General Assembly in Den Haag Date: Fri, 9 Sep 94 23:18:25 EDT Dear Colleagues, I thank Preben Grosbol for his good wishes for me and for Ernst Raimond as we begin our term as Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the IAU FITS Working Group. I am sure that all friends of FITS will join me in thanking Preben for his excellent leadership of the FITS community during the past twelve years. Preben's final term as Chair of the IAU-FWG ended in an especially memorable fashion, with the final acceptance of BINTABLE, IMAGE and Blocking as FITS standards. During the FITS Working Group session in Den Haag on August 23rd, Preben asked me to discuss plans for the next triennium. My vugraph was titled "IAU-FWG project list for 1994-97", with these items: 1) Review/modify the relationship between FWG and IAU-EC+Comm5 As Preben noted in his message, we made real progress on this critically important action item during the sessions at Den Haag, but several questions remain to be settled during the coming triennium. 2) Approve the NOST FITS document (need units agreement) The NOST FITS standard document has been in preparation for nearly five years with the specific goal that it should be accepted by the IAU FITS WG as the definitive standard for the FITS data format. Soon this document will be submitted to the FITS community for review. 3) Make progress toward a WCS agreement R&D efforts on "world coordinate systems" [WCS] for FITS began more than ten years ago, and interoperable implementations were deployed for radio interferometers and for the Einstein and IRAS spacecraft during the 80s. The latest releases of IRAF support WCS, and are interoperable with the prior implementations. The time appears to be ripe for the WCS agreement. The latest draft of the WCS proposal, ftp://fits.cv.nrao.edu/fits/documents/wcs/wcs.all.ps.Z, will be discussed at the FITS Birds-Of-a-Feather session at the ADASS'94 meeting in Baltimore two weeks from now. 4) Make progress toward a compression agreement I intend to encourage a renewed R&D effort on compression for FITS. 5) Register FITS with the Internet (IANA) as a MIME data type. I intend to ask the IAU-FWG for permission to apply to the Internet Assigned-Numbers Authority for a MIME [Multimedia Internet Mail Extensions] code for FITS, so that FITS file objects can be encapsulated in Email messages, and will be recognized by non-astronomy application code. I will be happy to receive comments about these action items, or about other potential projects which the FITS community could undertake. Best regards, Don Wells Chairman, IAU FITS Working Group Donald C. Wells Associate Scientist dwells@nrao.edu http://fits.cv.nrao.edu/~dwells National Radio Astronomy Observatory +1-804-296-0277 520 Edgemont Road, Charlottesville, Virginia 22903-2475 USA