Dear colleagues,

I am pleased to announce that the new 3.0 version of the FITS Standard
document has been officially approved by the IAU FITS working group. It
is now available on the FITS Support office website at
http://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/fits_standard.html.

This new 3.0 version contains several substantial changes, such as the
new section on World Coordinate Systems, as well as hundreds of other
smaller changes to the text to help clarify many of the topics. The
previous 2.1 version of the Standard and the even older NOST 2.0 version
are now obsolete and contain invalid information, so I strongly urge you
to always refer to this new 3.0 version whenever there is a question
about FITS requirements.


regards,

Bill Pence
On behalf of the IAU FITS Working Group
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__________________________________________________ __________________
Dr. William Pence
NASA/GSFC Code 662 HEASARC +1-301-286-4599 (voice)
Greenbelt MD 20771 +1-301-286-1684 (fax)