VOUnits 1.1 RFC

[Arnold Rots]

I am equally mystified.
This statement is simply wrong.

Arnold H Rots

Research Associate

SAO/HEAD

Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian

Email: arots at cfa.harvard.edu

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On Tue, Jul 4, 2023 at 1:22 PM Steve Allen <sla at ucolick.org> wrote:

> On Fri 2023-06-30T17:59:38+0200 Markus Demleitner hath writ:
> > * Clarified: that Besselian year is not in FITS.
>
> I am mystified at this change.
>
> Refer to the fields found in the original SAO catalog
>
> https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/W3Browse/star-catalog/sao.html
>
> If the original SAO catalog is stored in a FITS table there
> will be fields
>
> RA_Epoch
> Dec_Epoch
>
> Those were expressed along with coordinates in the FK4 system,
> therefore the units of those epochs will be Besselian years.
> Unless I am mistaken the proper motions in the SAO catalog
> are also expressed as motion per Besselian year.
>
> The reason that we listed Besselian years in the FITS time paper was
> in order to provide a notation for a machine to have correct
> interpretation of the units of quantities in tables which were
> transcribed directly from original sources which used those units.
>
> I do not see how FITS can reject the notion that it contains
> the Besselian year unless it is being decided to discard much
> of the astronomical data from before I was born.
>
> --
> Steve Allen                    <sla at ucolick.org>              WGS-84 (GPS)
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>
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