ASCOM FITS driver (still beta... :)

The FITS driver can be used from scripts or other clients to read and write astronomical
FITS images. It provides access to many of the keywords of the FITS header via properties.
It is written in C++ and makes use of the cfitsio library.

Capabilities:

• read FITS files
• read / write properties of the image
• read / write image data (pixels)
• update existing FITS files
• create new FITS files from an image array and properties

The driver implements the ASCOM Image interface, which is still in pre-alpha state.
Here you can download a first proposal:  ASCOM_Image.xls  - 2003-07-20

COM-ProgId of the Interface:  "FITS.Image" (like "Meade.Telescope")


Download:

FITS.zip  (contains FITS.dll) - 293k - 2005-03-03

Just unzip to c:\Program Files\Common Files\ASCOM\Image\
and register it (regsvr32 FITS.dll)

Sample scripts (right click - save as):

• header.vbs - displays header info of an existing FITS file
• create.vbs - takes an image from the CCD camera simulator and creates a new FITS file from it
• read.vbs - shows how to access image pixel data and image dimensions

Open items:

• WCS handling
• ...

Author: Matthias Busch (matthias.busch@easysky.de)