FITS tables

Much of the above also applies to FITS tables that GAIA will read, i.e. FITS keywords with the name SYMBOL will be interpreted correctly. Special parameter names that are longer than 8 characters (such as search_cols, sort_order, show_cols and copyright) should be truncated. Long symbol expressions can span more than one card by using the names: SYMBOL1 through SYMBOL9. The columns used for world coordinates should have units of degrees or radians and have names like RA and DEC.