readFrameFromFITS {FITSio}

Read a single data set from a FITS file into a data frame

Description

Read a binary table from a FITS file directly into an R data frame.

Usage

readFrameFromFITS(file, hdu = 1)

Arguments

file

existing FITS file name.

hdu

position of Header and Data Unit (HDU) in FITS file: 1 for the first HDU, 2 for the second HDU, etc.

Details

readFrameFromFITS reads a single binary table Header and Data Unit (HDU) pair from a file and returns the values as a data table.

Binary table bit, complex, and array descriptor data types are not implemented in this release due to a lack of examples for testing. 8, 16, 24, and 32-bit bit arrays return as integers. Other lengths are not supported.

Value

An R data frame with the contents of the requested binary table.

Note

Graphical FITS viewers such as fv (https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/ftools/fv/) and SAOImage DS9 (http://ds9.si.edu/) have excellent facilities for displaying FITS data, headers, and file structure. Having one or more graphical viewers available will prove extremely useful for working with FITS files, even when the data are read into R for further processing. fv and SAOImage DS9 are in active devlopement with support for unix, Windows, and Mac OS-X operating systems, and are available at no cost.

Author(s)

Eric H.\ Neilsen, Jr.

References

Hanisch et al., Astron.\ Astrophys. 376, 359-380 (2001)

https://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/

See Also

readFITS

Examples

require(FITSio)

## Either download example file from
## <https://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/fits_samples.html>
## and use
## Not run: filename <- "IUElwp25637mxlo.fits"
## or, for local example use
filename <- system.file("fitsExamples", "IUElwp25637mxlo.fits",
                        package = "FITSio")

## Get data and display
F <- readFrameFromFITS(filename) 
names(F)
plot(F$NET, ylab = "Value", main = names(F)[5], type = "l")

### Simple flat file example
filename <- system.file("fitsExamples", "2008_03_11_203150.fits",
                        package = "FITSio")  
F <- readFrameFromFITS(filename) 
names(F)
attach(F)
plot(DMJD, TiltX, xlab = "Time [DMJD]", ylab = "X Tilt [degr]", type = "l")
detach(F)