AstroArtV5 supports the WCS fits header:
The WCS (World Coordinate Systems) is a standard composed by FITS keywords which permit to share the astrometric calibration on many different platforms.
These keywords are written to the FITS header by Astroart when the image is saved after an astrometric calibration, for future use by any other FITS reader which supports WCS. Here is a brief description of some of the most important WCS keywords:
▪ CTYPE1 and CTYPE2 indicate the coordinate type and projection. The first four characters are RA-- and DEC- in case of equatorial coordinates (other coordinate types like galactic or ecliptic coordinates are not managed by Astroart). The second four characters contain a four-character code for the projection type (-TAN).
▪ CRPIX1 and CRPIX2 are the pixel coordinates of the reference point to which the projection and the rotation refer.
▪ CRVAL1 and CRVAL2 give the center coordinate as right ascension and declination or longitude and latitude in decimal degrees.
There are three options for the scale and rotation:
▪ Historically, CDELT1 and CDELT2 have been used to indicate the plate scale in degrees per pixel and CROTA2 has been used to indicate the rotation of the horizontal and vertical axes in decimal degrees.
▪ The FITS WCS standard uses a rotation matrix, CD1_1, CD1_2, CD2_1, and CD2_2 to indicate both rotation and scale, allowing a more intuitive computation if the axes are skewed. This model has been used by HST and IRAF for several years.
▪ The 1996 proposed FITS WCS standard used PC001001, PC001002, PC002001, and PC002002 to represent the rotation matrix but retained CDELT1 and CDELT2 for the scale. It is also read by this software, but should not be used for new WCS's.
Astroart supports both the approximate standard based on keywords CDELT and CROTA and the more precise system based on keywords CDx_y.