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I have accidentally saved a .fits file with a .csv extension and now can not open it. This is a very important data for us I wonder if there is anyway to recover it? Thank you so so much for your help!

I've tried to change the extension back to .fits but met the error "1st key is not SIMPLE or XTENSION" when trying to open the fits file.

This is how the beginning of the file looks like when open in notepad

Andor Technology Multi-Channel File 65538 1 65567 0 0 1 1684880276 -60
   0 1e-06 0.009185 0.009185 1   0.009185 1e-07 0 1 50 0 0 0 0 0   
 256 0 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3.3e-06 0 1 12972 0 1 -999 1 0 1 0 0 -1 4 32
 30000 0 0 1 500 1 1 15.887 550 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 9 DU897_EXF
Freiheit
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Vanimiaou
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  • Open the file in a text editor. Are the first few lines of the file a CSV format or a FITS format? – Freiheit May 24 '23 at 16:43
  • What application did you save the file from in the first place? – Freiheit May 24 '23 at 16:43
  • Hello, I used the camera software which is called Andor Solis. I edited the original post with how the beginning of the file looks like but it doesn't look like a CSV – Vanimiaou May 24 '23 at 17:53
  • That might be a SIF file. Try opening it in a SIF file reader. I am not familiar with FITS nor with the related scientific fields but I am assuming that by selecting a different extension or format that the software will just save a file in its default format with the CSV extension but if you selected a supported format it would save in that format. – Freiheit May 24 '23 at 18:16
  • Besides the question being off-topic (not about programming), if the filename is the only problem just renaming it will work. If it doesn't, the file itself got damaged or failed to generate properly. – Alejandro May 24 '23 at 18:19
  • Thank you @Freiheit , it was indeed a sif file !! I was able to recover it and I am so relieved ! thank you very much !!! – Vanimiaou May 24 '23 at 19:48

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Based on the file contents Andor Technology Multi-Channel File 65538 this is a SIF file and should be viewable in any SIF viewer.

Freiheit
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