IRAS Explanatory Supplement
X. The Formats of the IRAS Catalogs and Atlases
A. Introduction

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This chapter describes the formats of the point source and small extended source catalogs, the total intensity images and the low-resolution spectra in their printed and machine-readable forms. A brief description is given of each entry in the catalogs; tables describe each column of the catalog in more detail and give, for the machine readable versions, the logical type of each variable and its length in bytes. Each tape containing IRAS catalog information has at least one header file containing the date and version number of the data on the tape (Table X.A.1).
Format of Header Files
Table X.A.1
Start Byte Name Description Length
00 NAME Name of IRAS data product 30A1
30 DATE Date of production 12A1
42 VERS Version Number 5A1
47 COMMENT 32 bytes of comment 32A1

IRAS images are presented in the FITS format (Wells, Greisen and Harten 1981). Sample headers are given for the sky plates, the Galactic plane map and the all-sky map. The format of the ½° beam zodiacal history file is described in this chapter. The format of the extragalactic specialty catalog is described at the beginning of that catalog.

IRAS data products discussed in this chapter include:

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