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WCS

  The bias-subtracted, flatfielded data frames in the EDR include World Coordinate System (WCS) information in the FITS file headers. This information enables some display and analysis software to provide RA and DEC information on a pixel by pixel basis and also to overlay an equatorial coordinate grid over the image.

Present WCS proposed standards calabretta01 do not fully support a rigorous transformation from great circle to equatorial coordinates. As a result, the WCS representation does not reflect the full accuracy of the astrometric solution, but the accuracy is better than one pixel (about 0.4'') within a frame.

The conversion from (row,col) measured in a field to tex2html_wrap_inline2847(J2000 degrees) is
eqnarray471
where tex2html_wrap_inline3027 and tex2html_wrap_inline3029, and CRVAL1, CRVAL2, CRPIX1, CRPIX2, CD1_1, CD1_2, CD2_2, and CD2_1 are parameters defined in the FITS header for each field.



Michael Strauss
Thu Jan 30 11:15:34 EST 2003