fitsio is a python extension written in c and python. Data are read into
numerical python arrays.

Some Features:
- Read from and write to image, binary, and ascii table extensions.
- Read arbitrary subsets of table columns and rows without loading all the data
  to memory.
- Read image subsets without reading the whole image. Write subsets to existing
  images.
- Write and read variable length table columns.
- Read images and tables using slice notation similar to numpy arrays. This is
  like a more powerful memmap, since it is column-aware for tables.
- Append rows to an existing table. Delete row sets and row ranges. Resize
  tables, or insert rows.
- Query the columns and rows in a table.
- Read and write header keywords.
- Read and write images in tile-compressed format (RICE,GZIP,PLIO,HCOMPRESS).
- Read/write gzip files directly. Read unix compress (.Z,.zip) and bzip2 (.bz2)
  files.
- TDIM information is used to return array columns in the correct shape.
- Write and read string table columns, including array columns of arbitrary
  shape.
- Read and write complex, bool (logical), unsigned integer, signed bytes types.
- Write checksums into the header and verify them.
- Insert new columns into tables in-place.
- Iterate over rows in a table. Data are buffered for efficiency.
- python 3 support, including python 3 strings