[AstroPy] Need Help about Astropy.table.Table.write

Phil Hodge hodge at stsci.edu
Tue Jul 29 14:32:58 EDT 2014


On 07/29/2014 01:17 PM, Peter Weilbacher wrote:
>>> vega = apt.Table.read('ftp://ftp.stsci.edu/cdbs/calspec/alpha_lyr_stis_007.fits')
>>> > >WARNING: UnitsWarning: 'ANGSTROMS' did not parse as fits unit: At col 0, Unit 'ANGSTROMS' not supported by the FITS standard. Did you mean Angstrom or angstrom? [astropy.units.core]
> This suggestion is not completely right, is it? The FITS standard says
>     "Note that, per IAU convention, case is significant throughout."
> and the table of allowed units only has the version "Angstrom".

And the unit is "angstrom", not "Angstrom", in spite of the FITS 
standard.  Unit names in English are lower case.  Unit abbreviations 
begin with an upper case letter if and only if the unit is named after a 
person (except L for liter is OK).  See the AIP Style Manual, Table IV, 
for example, or The NIST Guide for the use of the International System 
of Units (http://www.nist.gov/pml/pubs/sp811/).  The FITS standard 
doesn't have to be so rigid.

Phil



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