Astro::FITS::Header module
--------------------------  

What is it?
-----------
Astro::FITS::Header and associated sub-classes are tools for reading,
modifying and then writing out FITS standard header blocks to FITS and
NDF files.

Requirements
------------
The Astro::FITS::Header module can work with FITS Header blocks, either
directly from the primary FITS HDU of a file complying with the FITS data
standard, or from the FITS extension in an extensible N-dimensional data 
format (NDF) file.

To work with FITS files, the Astro::FITS::Header module requires Pete 
Ratzlaff's <pratzlaff@cfa.harvard.edu> CFITSIO.pm library (v 0.95 or greater),
which in turn requires William Pence's CFITSIO subroutine library (v2.100 or
greater).

For more information on CFITSIO, see http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/fitsio/

To work with NDF files, the Astro::FITS::Header module requires Tim
Jenness' <t.jenness@jach.hawaii.edu> Starlink::NDF.pm module (version 1.42 or
greater). This module is installed as part of the PERLMODS package in the
Starlink Software Collection.

For more information on the Starlink Software Collection and the Starlink
Project in general see http://www-star.rl.ac.uk/

Provides
--------
The package provides the following classes
	
   Astro::FITS::Header
   Astro::FITS::Header::NDF
   Astro::FITS::Header::CFITSIO
   
which all include POD format documentation. 

Where can I get it?
-------------------------
The package is availabe from CPAN <http://www.cpan.org/> and from
http://www.astro.ex.ac.uk/people/aa/pages/computing/fitsheader.html  

Installation
------------
Installation is automated using the ExtUtils::MakeMaker library

     % perl Makefile.PL
     % make
     % make test
     % make install

If the CFITSIO or NDF modules are not installed 'make test' will
detect this and skip the test harness for the relevant modules with a warning.

Authors
-------
This module was jointly written by Alasdair Allan <aa@astro.ex.ac.uk>, of the
University of Exeter Astrophysics Group (http://www.astro.ex.ac.uk/) as part
of his work for the Starlink Project (http://www-star.rl.ac.uk/), and Tim
Jenness <timj@jach.hawaii.edu> of the Joint Astronomy Center (JAC) in Hawaii.

License
-------
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software
Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later
version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,but WITHOUT ANY
WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with
this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple
Place,Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307, USA
