Quote:
Originally Posted by NorthernLight
Hi Dennis,
good news I assume. But please allow me a question that may has been answered quite often:
what are FITS files good for?
Is it that one can use 32bit data and manipulate it in Photoshop? Or is it just a little more fancy or is there a deeper mysterium behind it?
I use DSS and CS2 and would like to use the full 32bit data that comes out of the stack. Is that why people like FITS-files?
I really donīt know but would like to!
Cheers
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FITS files were originally for scientific uses. They are non compressed files that are similar to bitmaps. They can be used to record spectra in multiple wavelengths in the one file (called a FITS cube) and can record both optical images and radio data. The header records lots of useful info about the image including position data. With this data astronomy can be performed to find accurate positional data etc.
As to why you would use them for pretty pictures.
The cameras that are used for pretty pics can also be used to collect scientific data. If the images are taken as JPEG etc then they are of very limited scientific use so the default is to use fits files.
To convert them into image files for pretty pics is easy but the reverse process isn't.