Recommendations for FITS Headers

We present an example of best practices for FITS Headers to improve documentation and accessibility of solar physics data distributed as FITS files.

We build on existing norms and standards, including ‘Proposed Keywords for SOHO’ and the FITS World Coordinate System (WCS) conventions, and include recommendations on the use of FITS features and extensions to help make data stored and distributed in FITS better suited for both present-day usage and for long-term archiving.

Our goals include:

1. Allow both solar physicists and non-discipline scientists to easily understand what’s in a file from an instrument they’ve never dealt with before
2. Allow scientists to quickly determine if the data is useful for their purposes.
3. Allow scientists to find where to get documentation on how to use the data.
4. Reduce the likelihood of keywords or data being misunderstood.
5. Give data providers a template to work from when designing FITS headers for new missions.
6. Allow scientists to determine which keywords are FITS or solar physics standards, and which are mission- or instrument-specific.
7. Ensure the data is accessible, understandable and usable over the long-term.
8. Reduce barriers to acknowledgment and citation of data.
9. Provide for identification of files and observations to enable scientists to check if data has been deprecated and obtain an appropriate replacement.