Read Headers only

From Tauwiki

Steps in Reading Headers only:

There appears to be a problem in nom.tam.fits in that it operates at the HDU level only. This causes a problem when the data part is huge. We will create a new class which operates on the header only. This is a fairly easy program to create because the header is ascii with a definite structure.

The procedure will be to point to the appropriate HDU. This may be possibly be done using the nom.tam.fits tools. Once pointed to the beginning of the HDU, start reading each card. Remember that a card consists of the Keyword, the value and the comment and is a total of 80 characters (IS THIS CORRECT?)

The program can read 80 characters at a time and parse it into the appropriate values. The end of the header will be marked by END.