Open Fits Failed

[john_robertson1953]

Hi Robin,

Just recently, stacking fits files, Ive been receiving inconsistent error messages when I try to open the file.

Using Asifitsview, see attachment for error message. Sometimes everything works fine and the file opens; other times I receive the error message and cant open the file. I dont know what causing the inconsistency

When i try to open the files in Pixinsight, the following error message appears:

Reading 1 image(s):
//astromini/c/Users/john_/Desktop/SharpCap Captures/2023-07-21/HIP 100453 (γ Cyg, 37 Cyg, Sadr)/Stack_16bits_1frames_180s7_21_2023T00_08_37.fits
** Warning: Deprecated format: FITS
*** Error: PCL Legacy FITS Format Support: Unable to open FITS file: //astromini/c/Users/john_/Desktop/SharpCap Captures/2023-07-21/HIP 100453 (γ Cyg, 37 Cyg, Sadr)/Stack_16bits_1frames_180s7_21_2023T00_08_37.fits
CFITSIO error message stack:
01 : Name of file to open is blank. (ffopen)
*** Unable to open file: //astromini/c/Users/john_/Desktop/SharpCap Captures/2023-07-21/HIP 100453 (γ Cyg, 37 Cyg, Sadr)/Stack_16bits_1frames_180s7_21_2023T00_08_37.fits
<* failed *>

Im using SC v4.1.10885.0 (Beta)- 7/13/2023

I also uninstalled & reinstalled asifitsview, to no avail.

Please advise. Is there a way that I can recover this data?

Thank you,

John

[Menno555]

Hi John

I've seen this before somewhere and the problem was in the naming of the folder or the file itself.
So maybe this helps: either rename the filename and/or the directory name to something simple and see if PI opens it then?

Menno

[admin]

Hi,

it would also be worth checking the FITS file in another program (ie FITSLiberator, DeepSkyStacker, etc). If it opens fine in the other programs then it is likely an issue with ASIFitsViewer.

If you are still stuck then feel free to share the FITS file here (probably too big to upload to the forums, so share via DropBox/OneDrive/GoogleDrive/etc) and I will check it out.

cheers,

Robin

[turfpit]

John

This is your problem https://bbs.astronomy-imaging-camera.co ... pixinsight described on the ZWO forum. This was found via a Google search for "asiair unable to open fits file".

Looks like illegal characters in the filename - Greek letter (lower case gamma) in the path?

The grisly details here https://pixinsight.com/forum/index.php? ... ame.15225/. Described by the PixInsight Developer as "a limitation of the CFITSIO library on Windows (lack of Unicode support)".

Copy the file to a simple folder structure & name and check opening in PI.

lower_case_gamma.JPG (18.57 KiB) Viewed 667 times

Dave

[john_robertson1953]

Hi Menno, Robin, & Dave,

U guys are life savers!

I renamed directory, and yep, it loaded into PI!

Thats 3 hours of data that i figured i may have lost!

Thanks for your help,

John

[admin]

Hmmm,

that's interesting, since SharpCap is using the data from its object catalog to name the folder. Perhaps I should have an option to avoid using greek letters and suchlike in file or folder names to make it easy to work around this?

cheers,

Robin

[admin]

Hmmm again...

on second thoughts, PixInsight have no real excuse for not fixing this - there are lots of workarounds they could use from accessing the file/folder via its short file name to copying the file to a temporary folder and then copying back if necessary later.

cheers,

Robin

[john_robertson1953]

It originally wouldn’t open in asifitsview or fits liberator.

So isn’t it more of an issue other than PI?

[Menno555]

Robin

I did some testing. I don't have PI but do have other programs recognizing/using FITS.
I just made a directory exactly the same as John's with the lowercase gamma γ in it.
Zwo's ASIFitsView, DeepSkyStacker, FITS Liberator and Tenmon also are giving errors with γ in the directory name, not opening the FITS.
But SiriL, Aladin, All Sky Plate Solver and SharpCap do open it just fine.
All this on Windows 11.
So it seems a very mixed bag when it comes to these kind of characters.

Menno

[admin]

Hi Menno,

thanks for doing that test - I think it links back to the Dave's post above that mentioned this was an issue with the CFITSIO library, which is probably being used by all the applications that have issues. It looks like the code to this library is only set up to accept ASCII filenames rather than unicode. As I mentioned above there are still workarounds such as copying problem files to a safe name or (maybe) using a UTF8 string representation of the filename.

Anyway, since this seems widespread amongst applications and we can't expect them all to be fixed, I will try to address this in SharpCap.

cheers,

Robin