The Flexible Im
age Tr
ansport System (FITS) st
and
ard h
as been
a gre
at boon to
astronomy,
allowing observ
atories, scientists
and the public to exch
ange
astronomic
al inform
ation e
asily. The FITS st
and
ard, however, is showing its
age. Developed in the l
ate 1970s, the FITS
authors m
ade
a number of implement
ation choices th
at, while common
at the time,
are now seen to limit its utility with modern d
at
a. The
authors of the FITS st
and
ard could not
anticip
ate the ch
allenges which we
are f
acing tod
ay in
astronomic
al computing. Difficulties we now f
ace include, but
are not limited to,
addressing the need to h
andle
an exp
anded r
ange of speci
alized d
at
a product types (d
at
a models), being more conducive to the networked exch
ange
and stor
age of d
at
a, h
andling very l
arge d
at
asets,
and c
apturing signific
antly more complex met
ad
at
a and d
at
a rel
ationships.
There are members of the community today who find some or all of these limitations unworkable, and have decided to move ahead with storing data in other formats. If this fragmentation continues, we risk abandoning the advantages of broad interoperability, and ready archivability, that the FITS format provides for astronomy. In this paper we detail some selected important problems which exist within the FITS standard today. These problems may provide insight into deeper underlying issues which reside in the format and we provide a discussion of some lessons learned. It is not our intention here to prescribe specific remedies to these issues; rather, it is to call attention of the FITS and greater astronomical computing communities to these problems in the hope that it will spur action to address them.