bandpasses in RM

Robert Hanisch hanisch at stsci.edu
Mon Mar 22 08:22:36 PST 2004


I am starting to make the updates to the RM document brought about by the
RFC and there is the matter of bandpass names, which we were urged to
standardize and make consistent.  I remind you that now we have the
following eight bandpasses as allowed values for Coverage.Spectra:

  Radio
  Millimeter
  Infrared
  Optical
  UV
  EUV
  X-ray
  Gamma-ray

We have two names that are acronyms and the others not, and it does seem
would should be self-consistent.

How would people feel about consolidating to seven named regions, all
spelled-out?

  Radio
  Millimeter
  Infrared
  Optical
  Ultraviolet
  X-ray
  Gamma-ray

Ultraviolet would "consume" EUV.  My reasoning is
1) These are broad definitions at this level; further specificity is
provided by Coverage.Spectral.Bandpass and the central, minimum, and maximum
wavelength elements.
2) EUV is infrequently observed; only a handful of resources would
characterize themselves as specific to EUV and could still be easily found
with Spectral.Coverage = UV plus other constraints.

We could also include EUV spelled-out,

  Extreme-Ultraviolet
or
  Extreme Ultraviolet

but for reasons mentioned above it seems simpler to me to leave it out.

Thanks,
Bob



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