FIT File Documentation

Overview

Feature Value
File Extension .fit
MIME Type image/fits
Developed By Astronomy & Astrophysics community
Primary Usage Scientific data interchange, especially astronomy images and data
Header Section ASCII text for metadata description
Data Section Binary data, images or multi-dimensional arrays
Support for Image Types 2D images, 3D images and data cubes
Support for Compression Yes, including gzip and Rice compression
Advantages High flexibility, widespread use in astronomy, supports complex data structures
Disadvantages Complex for non-scientific users, requires specialized software for viewing
Maximum Image Dimension None, limited only by file system
Multi-Object Support Yes, through extensions
World Coordinate System (WCS) Support for spatial and spectral calibration data
Metadata Support Extensive, including history and commentary sections
Standard Extensions BINTABLE, IMAGE, ASCII TABLE
Character Encoding for Headers ASCII
Endian-ness Big-endian for numerical data
Checksum Support Yes, for file integrity verification
Variable Length Array Support Yes, within table extensions
Common Software Support IRAF, SAOImage DS9, FITS Liberator, etc.