DOKK / manpages / debian 12 / montage / mHdrCheck.1.en
MHDRCHECK(1) Montage MHDRCHECK(1)

mHdrCheck - Check the validity of a FITS image's header

mHdrCheck [-s statusfile] img.fits

mHdrCheck reads in the header from a FITS image (or an ASCII header template file) and checks to see if any header lines are invalid. If it finds one, it will print out a message stating which keyword is invalid and exit before checking the rest of the header. It will not report on multiple invalid values. If all value are correct, mHdrCheck will print out a "Valid FITS/WCS" message.

Output and errors are sent to statusfile instead of to stdout

Path of FITS file to be validated.

Valid WCS in FITS file.
Valid FITS/WCS in header file.
Cannot open status file statusfile
File filename not found.
File (filename) is not a FITS image
FITS header lines cannot be greater than 80 characters
No BITPIX keyword in FITS header
No NAXIS keyword in FITS header
No NAXIS1 keyword in FITS header
No NAXIS2 keyword in FITS header
No CTYPE1 keyword in FITS header
No CTYPE2 keyword in FITS header
No CRPIX1 keyword in FITS header
No CRPIX2 keyword in FITS header
No CRVAL1 keyword in FITS header
No CRVAL2 keyword in FITS header
No CDELT1 keyword (or incomplete CD matrix) in FITS header
No CDELT2 keyword (or incomplete CD matrix) in FITS header
BITPIX keyword in FITS header not an integer
Invalid BITPIX in FITS header (must be 8,16,32,64,-32 or -64)
NAXIS keyword in FITS header not an integer
NAXIS keyword in FITS header must be >= 2
NAXIS1 keyword in FITS header not an integer
NAXIS1 keyword in FITS header must be > 0
NAXIS2 keyword in FITS header not an integer
NAXIS2 keyword in FITS header must be > 0
CRPIX1 keyword in FITS header not a real number
CRPIX2 keyword in FITS header not a real number
CRVAL1 keyword in FITS header not a real number
CRVAL2 keyword in FITS header not a real number
CDELT1 keyword in FITS header not a real number
CDELT2 keyword in FITS header not a real number
CROTA2 keyword in FITS header not a real number
CD1_1 keyword in FITS header not a real number
CD1_2 keyword in FITS header not a real number
CD2_1 keyword in FITS header not a real number
CD2_2 keyword in FITS header not a real number
EQUINOX keyword in FITS header not a real number
No WCS information (or not FITS header)
Must have at least two dimensions
Invalid projection
Invalid NAXIS1
Invalid NAXIS2
CTYPE1 and CTYPE2 don't match
Invalid CTYPE1
Invalid CD matrix
Invalid CDELT1
Invalid CDELT2
FITS library error

$ mHdrCheck input/badfits/bad-crota2.fits
[struct stat="ERROR", msg="CROTA2 keyword in FITS header not a real number"]
$ mHdrCheck input/2mass.fits
[struct stat="OK", msg="Valid FITS/WCS."]
$ mHdrCheck input/badfits/bad-ctype.fits

[struct stat="ERROR", msg="Invalid projection"]

The drizzle algorithm has been implemented but has not been tested in this release.

If a header template contains carriage returns (i.e., created/modified on a Windows machine), the cfitsio library will be unable to read it properly, resulting in the error: [struct stat="ERROR", status=207, msg="illegal character in keyword"]

It is best for the background correction algorithms if the area described in the header template completely encloses all of the input images in their entirety. If parts of input images are "chopped off" by the header template, the background correction will be affected. We recommend you use an expanded header for the reprojection and background modeling steps, returning to the originally desired header size for the final coaddition. The default background matching assumes that there are no non-linear background variations in the individual images (and therefore in the overlap differences). If there is any uncertainty in this regard, it is safer to turn on the "level only" background matching (the "-l" flag in mBgModel.

2001-2015 California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California

If your research uses Montage, please include the following acknowledgement: "This research made use of Montage. It is funded by the National Science Foundation under Grant Number ACI-1440620, and was previously funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Earth Science Technology Office, Computation Technologies Project, under Cooperative Agreement Number NCC5-626 between NASA and the California Institute of Technology."

The Montage distribution includes an adaptation of the MOPEX algorithm developed at the Spitzer Science Center.

Dec 2016 Montage 5