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| Paper: |
Significant Problems in FITS Limit Its Use in Modern Astronomical Research |
| Volume: |
485, Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems XXIII |
| Page: |
351 |
| Authors: |
Thomas, B.; Jenness, T.; Economou, F.; Greenfield, P.; Hirst, P.; Berry, D. S.; Bray, E. M.; Gray, N.; Muna, D.; Turner, J.; de Val-Borro, M.; Santander-Vela, J.; Shupe, D.; Good, J.; Berriman, G.B. |
| Abstract: |
The Flexible Image Transport System (FITS) standard has been a great
boon to astronomy, allowing observatories, scientists, and the public
to exchange astronomical information easily. The FITS standard is,
however, showing its age. Developed in the late 1970s the FITS
authors made a number of implementation choices for the format that,
while common at the time, are now seen to limit its utility with modern
data. The authors of the FITS standard could not appreciate the
challenges which we would be facing today in astronomical
computing. Difficulties we now face include, but are not limited to,
having to address the need to handle an expanded range of
specialized data product types (data models), being more conducive
to the networked exchange and storage of data, handling very large
datasets and the need to capture significantly more complex
and data relationships.
There are members of the community today who find some (or all) of
these limitations unworkable, and have decided to move ahead with
storing data in other formats. This reaction should be taken as a
wakeup call to the FITS community to make changes in the FITS
standard, or to see its usage fall. In this paper we detail some
selected important problems which exist within the FITS standard
today. It is not our intention to prescribe specific remedies to
these issues; rather, we hope to call attention of the FITS and
greater astronomical computing communities to these issues in the
hopes that it will spur action to address them. |
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