SSW Keyword/Tag Definitions

Last Revision: 5-July-2005

This document describes a minimal set of keyword definitions which permit application of SSW software tools to existing and new solar data sets. While the definitions are described as FITS Keywords, these are equivilent to the IDL structure tag definitions. Many SSW utilities operate on either FITS files or IDL structures and there are SSW routines which interconvert between the two (fitshead2struct.pro and struct2fitshead.pro). One very important implication of this interconvertability is that existing FITS files which do not include one or more of these tags are easily brought into the fold by definition of a function which adds the missing tags or adjusts incorrectly defined tags to the structure interpretation. This type of function is easily written using SSW structure manipulation SW. You do not have to regenerate any FITS files! An additional implication is that there is NO file format imposed or implied by SSW - it is an IDL based system which just happens to have alot of FITS users and includes extensive FITS support utilities. For example, the routine mreadfits.pro reads multiple 2D FITS files into a vector of IDL header structures and a corresponding 3D data cube which allows vectorized treatment of the large FITS image data bases, simplifies movie making, and offers many other advantages over traditional FITS processing techniques. The routine struct2ssw.pro is available to add or modify "partially conforming" data bases - for example, if any one of a few possible time or pointing standards is present, the others are derived according to the SSW definitions described below and included in the output structures. This facilitates integration of new data bases and maximizes the use of downline software available to the data base.

Use of these suggested standards permit immediate use of many utilities available under SSW including:

• Mapping package by D.Zarro et al. for solar image comparisons, rotations and overlays
• World Coordinate System package by W. Thompson for multidimensional and non-linear coordinate calculations
• utplot package by R.Schwartz et al. for time series analysis and inter-instrument comparisons
• Dynamic Stereoscopy package by M.Aschwanden
• ssw_track_fov differential rotation tracking and extraction of regions of interest from full disk data bases
• applications for grid overlay, limb darkening removal, differential rotation, inter-instrument solar dbase access, etc.

Many thanks to Dominic Zarro, Markus Aschwanden, Jean-Pierre Wuelser, Bill Thompson, Craig DeForrest, Richard Schwartz, Mons Morrison, Jeff Newmark, Russ Howard, and other SSW contributors for participating in discussions or providing documentation which led to distillation of these minimal SSW standards. Special thanks to Craig DeForrest for the use of his ztools WWW documentation which was used as the starting point for this document.

• Pointing
  • FITS Keywords / Tags for Pointing
  • Pixel Coordinate Systems
  • Image Coordinate Systems
• Timing
  • FITS Keywords / Tags for Timing
  • Reference Time
  • Time Zones
• FITS Keywords / Auxiliary Tags
• Standards Documents

Pointing Tags

Tag	Status	Source	Definition
NAXIS1, NAXIS2	REQ	FITS std	The width and height of the image, respectively, in pixels.
CRPIX1, CRPIX2	REQ	FITS std	The reference pixel coordinates. For example, if alignment is with respect to the lower left corner of the image, CRPIX1 and CRPIX2 should both be set to 1. If alignment is with respect to the center of the image, then CRPIX1 should be set to (NAXIS1+1)/2 and CRPIX2 should be set to (NAXIS2+1)/2
CRVAL1, CRVAL2	REQ May be zero	FITS std	The reference data coordinates corresponding to CRPIX1 and CRPIX2. For example, if the pixel coordinates specify the origin, then set CRVAL1 and CRVAL2 to zero.
CDELT1, CDELT2	REQ	FITS std	The width and heighth of a pixel in data units. For square pixels, CDELT1 = CDELT2
CTYPE1, CTYPE2	REQ	FITS std	Definition of the data units - ie., the interpretation of CDELT1 and CDELT2. For example, "SOLAR_X", "SOLAR_Y".
CROTA1, CROTA2	REQ (if non-zero, and PCi_j not used)	FITS std	Rotation angle of the image about the axis perpendicular to the plane of the image, through the point CRPIX1,CRPIX2. The rotation is specified in degrees CCW. If these fields are not specified, they are assumed to be zero. Set both CROTA1 and CROTA2 to the same value. The sense of the rotation is such that the coordinates x and y are calculated via a = CROTA2 x = CRVAL1 + CDELT1*cos(a)*(i-CRPIX1) - CDELT2*sin(a)*(j-CRPIX2) y = CRVAL2 + CDELT1*sin(a)*(i-CRPIX1) + CDELT2*cos(a)*(j-CRPIX2)
CUNIT1, CUNIT2	Suggested	World Coordinate System	Units along the data axes, e.g. "arcsec", "deg". See Greisen and Calabretta below for more information.
PC1_1, PC1_2, PC2_1, PC2_2	Suggested (if CROTAi not used)	World Coordinate System	Transformation matrix, used in place of CROTA1,CROTA2. See Greisen and Calabretta below for more information. The PCi_j and CROTAi keywords cannot be used simultaneously.
XCEN	Suggested	De Facto Solar Convention	East-West FOV center of image relative to sun center in CDELT1 units, positive West. XCEN is related to the above FITS keywords by: XCEN = CRVAL1 + CDELT1 * [(NAXIS1+1)/2 - CRPIX1 ]
YCEN	Suggested	De Facto Solar Convention	North-South FOV center of image relative to sun center in CDELT2 units, positive North. YCEN is related to the above FITS keywords by: YCEN = CRVAL2 + CDELT2 * [(NAXIS2+1)/2 - CRPIX2 ]

Timing tags

Auxiliary tags

A note about time conversions...

POINTING

Pointing overview

Pointing registration is accomplished in 2-D by defining a Cartesian coordinate system that lays upon the natural pixel coordinate system of the image. This "unitted" coordinate system is defined by a single datum of correspondence between the two systems, a scale for the unitted system, and a rotation angle.

Pixel coordinates

Pixellized images are assumed to be arranged in horizontal rasters running left to right, which in turn are stacked from bottom to top. X coordinates run left to right and are the fastest-running index; Y coordinates bottom to top and are the slower index.

There is an additional complication: FITS uses a different pixel coordinate system than does IDL. IDL takes (0,0) to be the lower left corner of the image, while FITS takes (1,1) to be the lower left corner.

Each pixel is taken to be centered on the appropriate coordinate: the extreme lower left corner of the lower left pixel is (-0.5,-0.5) in IDL pixel coordinates; or (0.5,0.5) in FITS pixel coordinates. This is important, for example, when keeping track of CRPIXn

Image coordinates

The "unitted" coordinates in the image are themselves the subject of some ambiguity. The SOHO and Yohkoh communities seem to use "Solar" coordinates a lot; these coordinates have the names "solar-x" and "solar-y", and are angular coordinates defined only for small angles away from Sun center, from the vantage point of the Earth.

Images are usually maps of some scalar quantity against 2-D angle; however, from a particular vantage point and for small angles (such as solar images as seen from Earth), they may be converted to maps versus position. The conversion requires knowledge of the observer's position relative to the Sun . This is accomplished with by keeping track of the observer's B-angle ('colatitude'), longitude, and radius from the Sun

Many generic solar SW utilities are available under SSW for things like solar ephemeris, grid overlay, NOAA AR overlay, image co-alignment, solar feature tracking and subfield extraction from full disk data sets, etc. Major contributors in these areas include T. Metcalf, J.P.Wuelser, G.Slater, L.Wang, B.Handy, M.Morrison, C.DeForrest, D.Zarro, W.Thompson, and S.Freeland.

Dominic Zarro has recently developed a powerful, object oriented suite of image mapping, rotation, reprojection, and overlay tools which can interface to solar data sets which provide the pointing information and time references keywords described in this document.

The ztools package by Craig DeForrest provide passing support for some coordinate systems that are not semi-cartesian. In particular, heliographic coordinates and image-plane radial coordinates are supported. Currently, there is no universally accepted way to specify an image's coordinate system explicitly; Craig has worked around the problem by naming the coordinates themselves. For example, a map of the solar magnetic field in heliographic coordinates would have CTYPE1="degrees-longitude" and CTYPE2="degrees-latitude". Craig has made a start at implementing a general coordinate-system naming regimen, with the V4 package of IDL routines; if you have a suggestion for how to incorporate coordinate system naming into FITS images, please let him know.

TIMING

Overview

It's important to specify the time at which an observation occured. Unfortunately, the standard ways to do this are complex and have been rendered more complex by some of the historical accidents of FITS interpretation with IDL in the solar community. In addition, the time given in the header is not well defined by either the FITS standard or the SOHO documentation.

Reference Time

The de facto (and now formal) standard for DATE-OBS is to use the start time of the observation. (Some instruments, eg MDI, use the middle of the observation, as that represents a better "mean time" for the observation as a whole; caveat emptor!) For timing critical investigations, where the mean time of the observation is needed, people can use DATE-OBS +EXPTIME/2 as the time of the observations.

Time Zones

As instruments get spread around the solar system, speed-of-light effects become important to observation timing. The SOHO standard for the time in the DATE_OBS stamp is "Earth-adjusted UT" -- that is, the UT time at Earth when an observer would have seen the same feature as is pictured.

One should be aware that the solar radius is 2.3 light seconds. This leads to some small temporal effects for spacecraft (such as STEREO) that will subtend significant elongation angles. For low-altitude coronal studies that require less precision than, say 10 seconds this should not be a problem. However, angle-induced timing errors of up to 1 minute will be seen in wide-field spectrographs in other parts of the solar system. If STEREO does indeed include LASCO-type instruments, we will probably need to deal with this.

On the other hand, the FITS standard keyword DATE-OBS is defined to be the time at the observatory, i.e. unadjusted for speed-of-light effects. This puts the onus on the analysis software, but avoids such viewpoint ambiguities. The expectation is that the SOHO DATE_OBS keyword will be superceded by the new standard for DATE-OBS.

FITS Standards Documents

FITS Standard

The official standard is maintained by the NASA/GSFC Fits Support Office.

HEASARC Conventions

FITS information from the NASA/GSFC High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center

FITS archive at NRAO

FITS information from the National Radio Astronomical Observatory

World Coordinate System

Information about the FITS World Coordinate System is available from Mark Calabretta's and Eric Greisen's home pages.

Howard & Thompson

A document dated 19-March-1997 that contains a proposal for SOHO FITS keyword usage.

SOI Keywords

A list of the FITS keywords used by the SOI/MDI SOHO instrument, and brief definitions for each.

DMZMAP

PRELIMINARY