FITS WCS Header Cards — CSV Reference (.csv)
Every header card of the tangent-plane WCS file transcribed to keyword, value and comment columns. Diff a header parser's output against it to prove the parser split each 80-column card at the right places instead of guessing on whitespace.
keyword,value,comment
SIMPLE,T,conforms to FITS standard
BITPIX,32,bits per data pixel
NAXIS,2,number of data axes
NAXIS1,24,length of data axis 1
NAXIS2,16,length of data axis 2
EXTEND,T,FITS dataset may contain extensions
OBJECT,'NX WCS TARGET',
BUNIT,'ADU ',
RADESYS,'ICRS ',celestial reference frame
EQUINOX,2000.0,
CTYPE1,'RA---TAN',"gnomonic projection, axis 1"
CTYPE2,'DEC--TAN',"gnomonic projection, axis 2"
CRPIX1,12.5,reference pixel on axis 1 (1-based)
CRPIX2,8.5,reference pixel on axis 2 (1-based)
CRVAL1,202.484167,"RA at the reference pixel, degrees"
CRVAL2,47.230556,"Dec at the reference pixel, degrees"
CDELT1,-0.000277778,degrees per pixel on axis 1
CDELT2,0.000277778,degrees per pixel on axis 2
CUNIT1,'deg ',
CUNIT2,'deg ',
COMMENT,Synthetic pointing. CRPIX is 1-based: pixel 1 is the first pixel.,
END,,
Specifications
- Cards
- 22
- Columns
- 3
- Source
- the tangent-plane WCS file
- Card Width
- 80
- Quoting
- RFC 4180 double quotes
Testing contract
Reference control- Scenario
- Parse the paired FITS primary header and emit one row per card, then diff against this file.
- Expected result
- Row count and keyword order match exactly, CRPIX1 reads as 12.5 rather than '12.5 / reference pixel', and comments arrive in the third column with the ' / ' separator stripped.
What is a .csv file?
CSV (Comma-Separated Values) is a plain-text tabular format where rows are lines and fields are separated by commas, with quoting rules for values that contain delimiters, quotes, or newlines. It has no formal type system and depends on encoding and dialect conventions. It is the most portable format for tabular data exchange.
How to use this file
Use an example CSV to test parsers against quoting and embedded-delimiter edge cases, header handling, encoding detection, and import pipelines into databases or spreadsheets.
How to use this file for testing
“FITS WCS Header Cards — CSV Reference (.csv)” is a deterministic Novus Examples fixture for Scientific data, Conversion testing, Editor testing. Citation catalogs (BibTeX, RIS), chemistry structures (MDL Molfile, PDB), and gridded binary data (NetCDF, FITS) — for testing reference managers, molecule viewers, and scientific-data loaders.
Documented properties for this file: 3 columns. Compare results against paired or grouped companions on this page when present (clean↔damaged, searchable↔scanned, or format twins) so scores stay reproducible across runs.
Download the file once, keep the path stable in CI or local scripts, and treat the spec table as the contract: dimensions, seeds, field lists, and roles are intentional. Corrupt or invalid samples are labelled as such — expect parsers to fail loudly rather than silently accept them.
Scientific fixtures are small, valid, and fully synthetic — no real organism, patient, sample, or observation. Point your parser or loader at the file and check it reads the documented records, variables, or headers; binary formats ship a readable twin or metadata listing for comparison.
Code examples
import pandas as pd
df = pd.read_csv("wcs-header-cards.csv")
print(df.head())
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