FITS Converter

Convert Astronomical data files (FITS) online for free


Drop or upload your .FITS file

How to convert your FITS file

  1. Click the "Select File" button above, and choose your FITS file.
  2. You'll see a preview.
  3. Click the "Convert file to..." button to save your file in the format you want.

Convert FITS to another file type

The converter easily converts your FITS Data files to various formats - free and online. No SAOImage DS9 or other Raster Image software needed.

  • FITS to TIFF
  • FITS to JPG
  • FITS to PNG
  • FITS to RAW
  • FITS to PDF
  • FITS to GIF
  • FITS to BMP
  • FITS to TIF
  • FITS to WEBP
  • FITS to ICO
  • FITS to EPS2
  • FITS to ART

Convert a file to FITS

The converter also works in reverse, so you can convert other "Astronomical Scientific Data File" formats to FITS without using software like SAOImage DS9 or a similar tool.

  • RAW to FITS
  • PNG to FITS
  • AI to FITS
  • NEF to FITS
  • PSB to FITS
  • DNG to FITS
  • SVG to FITS
  • GIF to FITS
  • EPS to FITS
  • JPG to FITS
  • ARW to FITS
  • PDF to FITS

About FITS files

.FITS (Flexible Image Transport System) is the standard data format used in astronomy. It stores multi-dimensional arrays (like 2D images or 3D data cubes) and 2D tables containing photometric and spatial calibration information. Usually, these files are opened with specialized scientific software like SAOImage DS9 or the ESA/ESO/NASA FITS Liberator. Developers often use the Astropy library in Python to extract the data. Read more about the format on Wikipedia. The .FITS format is incredibly specialized and poses significant limitations for casual use. It is completely unsupported by standard web browsers, default operating systems, and most commercial image editors like Adobe Photoshop. Files often exceed gigabytes in size because they store raw, uncompressed 16-bit or 32-bit floating-point data alongside complex ASCII metadata headers. You must convert .FITS files to share them online or view them easily. Just drag and drop your file here to analyze and convert it - free, online, and without installing specialized software. For quick web sharing, convert to JPG or PNG, but expect severe data loss as the massive dynamic range is compressed into 8-bit colors. For professional editing or printing while preserving higher bit depths, convert to TIFF.

Use Convert.Guru to open and convert your FITS file.

Users also converted FIT, FTS, NPY, ZIP, PAK, MOC, VTP, PWB, TIFF, JPG, CSV, PNG and RAW files.


FAQ

If you want to convert FITS file to CSV or ASCII, you can use SAOImage DS9 or similar software from the "Astronomical Data Storage" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….

To convert files to FITS, try SAOImage DS9 or another comparable tool in the "Astronomical Data Storage" category.



The FITS Converter Story

The history of Convert.Guru began over 25 years ago in California with Tom Simondi’s file-format database. A former contributor to Space Shuttle development and a software pioneer of the 1980s, Simondi established a trusted resource for file type analysis that was even referenced by Microsoft Windows XP. Today, we use modern technology to process and convert thousands of file formats while continually improving our FITS converter.