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5.10 High Energy Astrophysics Applications

The natural form for storing data for high energy astrophysics is as a table of events. Consequently, binary tables are used extensively for high energy astrophysics data. One example of a design for such tables is that for data from the High Resolution Imager on ROSAT.

The kind of information obtained from any high-energy experiment could be organized in a similar table. The header could, in addition to the card images describing the structure of the table, use keyword=value statements to convey such information as the conversion between instrument and sky coordinates, zero points for temporal and spatial scales, conversion between table values and physical values, and the instrument configuration. The table would contain such information as the coordinates (in the detector reference frame) of the individual events, the time of an event, the energy of an event, and the strength or intensity of an event. Example 7 in Appendix A shows a different FITS header for high energy astrophysics data, from the Advanced Satellite for Cosmology and Astrophysics (ASCA).


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Next: Resources Up: Advanced FITS Previous: Spectra