Questions tagged [star-catalogues]

Questions regarding lists of star designations.

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1 vote
1 answer
44 views

Where can I download the Hippacos Catalogue main file and Bright Star Catalogue?

I'm developing a software that uses the Hipparcos catalogue. Specifically, I have downloaded this version: ...
3 votes
1 answer
83 views

How can we make sure that it is physically the same source when we do cross matching?

When we go through multiple astronomy catalogs, we often do Cross-matching. We compare the position parameters $(\alpha, \delta)$ of different sources (galaxies, quasars, etc.) in the equatorial ...
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1 vote
1 answer
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Which catalogue has identified objects from Gaia DR3?

I am trying to match objects from a Gaia DR3 dataset having 1 million rows with simbad. I find it difficult to find object type for all the rows as queries using astroquery becomes insanely slow after ...
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4 votes
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Deepest known objects in the vicinity of Capella (or, generally, any specified object)

There must be a way to do this, but I don’t know where to start. Given a star (or other object, or a RA and dec), and a radius, what are the (say) 10 known deepest sky objects in this area, ordered ...
10 votes
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What 1° x 1° region is the optically darkest patch in the sky?

What 1° x 1° region of the night sky has the lowest flux of light? (considering the typical visual/luminance filter range, approximations using other filters/bands are acceptable, but should be in the ...
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3 votes
1 answer
68 views

How do cross-matching algorithms deal with unequal-sized catalogues?

Let's say I'm using a service like TOPCAT or Vizier's cross-matching service and I'm trying to match the RA and dec of the sources in Catalogue 1, with 100,000 sources, to those in Catalogue 2, with a ...
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2 votes
1 answer
82 views

Fitting isochrone on color magnitude diagram obtained from growth india telescope for M67

I was doing a project where I had to cross-match Panstarrs1 data (I took green data from there), with growth India telescope data (it is providing data red band) for NGC2682(Messier 67). After gaining ...
2 votes
1 answer
82 views

Why does the same file differ so much in size between FITS / CSV / ECSV formats?

Maybe this is obvious for some people but I'm a newbie when it comes to working with astronomical data. I have the same catalogue in different formats and am a bit surprised as to how sizes change. ...
1 vote
0 answers
68 views

Simbad, NED databases surface magnitude data?

I can't seem to find data about surface magnitude of galaxies in Simbad. I can easily find the apparent and absolute magnitude ... Should I just try to compute the surface magnitude, given the ...
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2 votes
1 answer
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Is there a centralized database of all stars?

Is there a centralized database for all stars, sourced from Gaia and other missions?
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1 vote
1 answer
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Mass of secondary normalized to 1 au

What does Mass of secondary normalized to 1 au in this catalogue https://vizier.cfa.harvard.edu/viz-bin/VizieR?-source=J/A+A/623/A72 mean, please? I tried to multiply that by Jupyter mass and the ...
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2 votes
1 answer
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Strange spectral types in star catalogs

I'm collecting different star catalogs I've found in the Internet to make my own and I noticed some "strange" peculiarity in how those catalogs describe spectral type of a star. Namely: ...
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1 vote
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Which parameters of stars could show they about to undergo a supernova explosion?

I need to seek stars in our galaxy about to undergo a SN from catalogues. I can find stars in our galaxy by setting parallax to a certain value. However, I don't know how to find a parameter which ...
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6 votes
1 answer
124 views

What are the main ways that pulsar "glitches" are noticed and documented? Do they have to be caught in the act of glitching to be catalogued?

This answer to Is there any well-populated list or database of pulsar "glitches"? mentions two large databases; (Jodrell Bank and ATNF's pulsar catalog) but neither question nor answer ...
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2 votes
1 answer
426 views

How do I intelligently revise the Yale Bright Star Catalog?

The Yale Bright Star Catalog was last revised in 1991. I'm thinking about making my own revision. How would you do that? What kind of pitfalls should I avoid? I'm especially interested in having ...
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2 answers
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What are the applications of cross matching astronomical catalogues?

Why do we cross match astronomical catalogues at different wavelengths? What information can we determine from combining the information from two catalogues? One of the applications I read was ...
8 votes
3 answers
2k views

How is the star 'Spica' pronounced?

Pronunciation seems to vary depending on the source, usually either SPY-kuh or SPEE-kuh. Which is correct?
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2 votes
2 answers
312 views

Downloadable GCNS (Gaia Catalog of Nearby Stars)

Has Gaia made the "Gaia Catalog of Nearby Stars" (GCNS) available for offline processing? Ideally I'd like the full 100pc data set in a format that doesn't require any specialized libraries ...
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2 votes
2 answers
178 views

By type, how far out do we have good star maps?

First off, these questions asked by others seem related, but each asks a slightly different question and neither have very good answers: How well have we mapped our local neighborhood of stars? ...
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-1 votes
1 answer
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What is the 'AT' astronomical catalogue? And the 'TXS' one? As in AT2019dsg and AT2019fdr?

I cannot find a site stating what the AT or TXS star/astronomy catalogues are, even though some AT and TXS 'events' have been in the news lately....
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1 vote
0 answers
58 views

Star Catalog with radius, luminosity, and spectra class?

I am looking for a star catalog (hopefully a .csv file) that contains radius, luminosity, and spectra class data for 1000+ stars. I have checked catalogs like the HIP, HD, and GAIA catalogs. I have ...
0 votes
2 answers
43 views

Semimajor axes data from Kepler Eclipsing Binary Catalog

I have been searching for a massive binary (>7 M$_{\odot}$) catalog with semimajor axes given, but I wasn't able to find any, and I began to search for a binary star catalog and decided to filter ...
1 vote
0 answers
31 views

Filtering local region in SIMBAD

I am completely new to astrophysics and currently writing a paper on Cepheid variables for high school physics. I would like to filter out all Cepheid variables in the local system which I would ...
1 vote
2 answers
89 views

Why is magnitude of Beta Lyrae given as 30.0 in Henry Draper catalog?

Beta Lyrae (HD 174638) is ascribed visual magnitude 30.0 in the Henry Draper catalog. There are hundreds of other stars in the catalog also given magnitude 30.0. What was meant by these nominal ...
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4 votes
1 answer
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How can I validate star names and designations?

While most star names and alphanumeric designations I've seen appear to be pure alphanumeric plus space, I have seen designations with both - and ...
3 votes
1 answer
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Star Map Vs Star Catalogue vs Planetarium Software

What is the difference between a star map, star catalogue and the sky provided by planetarium software? I have read the wiki but was having a hard time understanding how the data, accuracy and detail ...
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1 vote
1 answer
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In how far is Hipparcos data still being used?

I remember being excited when ESA launched Hipparcos in 1989 and was in operation until 15 August, 1993. Later, Gaia came into operation in 2013. Reading What is the overlap between the Gaia and the ...
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2 votes
0 answers
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Cross-matching astronomical catalogs

A project I'm working on involves getting data from SDSS DR12, and cross-matching it with NED, as described in Section 2 of this paper: 2.1 The sample From the SDSS Data Release 12 (DR12, Alam et al. ...
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2 votes
2 answers
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SIMBAD TAP queries seem to indicate there are no distance measurements for a great many nearby stars, including Alpha Centauri or Barnard's Star

I'm attempting to create a map of all objects within 50LY, including main-sequence stars, binaries, planemos, etc. As such, I'm trying to do it all from first principles, building a micro-ETL to ...
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6 votes
1 answer
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Can it be assumed that every star in an amateur astrophotograph has been cataloged?

While I was looking at a wide-angle photograph of the Milky Way I wondered: Is it possible that some of the stars in the image have yet to be identified and/or cataloged? My answer to this is no, but ...
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1 vote
2 answers
120 views

Eta Cassiopeiae star type; G0V? F9V? Both?

For a story I am looking into the star system of Eta Cassiopeiae, which is a binary with a main sequence star called Achird (very similar to the sun) and a K7V star. The issue I am running into is the ...
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2 votes
2 answers
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Why does the Simbad page "A.A. Michelson's Jovian Galilean-satellite interferometer" show data for Betelgeuse?

When searching for things related to How did Michelson measure the diameters of jupiter's moons using optical interferometry? I came across the ui.adsabs.harvard.edu entry A. A. Michelson's Jovian ...
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1 vote
1 answer
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Accurate catalogue of the Stars according to Hemisphere

I am in the need for an accurate catalogue of the stars in the Hemisphere I am currently in (or the one that I chose) and their positions at any time of the year. The more accurate the catalogue is, ...
1 vote
1 answer
75 views

Star designation

There are several designations for most of the stars (left column in the picture). What is the name of designation for names like Alnilam, Sirius, Alhara ... How to call these names? Thanks
0 votes
1 answer
230 views

Is there a website out there where I can find/compare data on stellar parameters for the brightest stars?

I'm looking for some kind of catalog/repository which lists stellar parameters (e.g. mass, radius, temperature) in a similar vein to NASA's Exoplanet Catalog (but except for stars), for the brightest ...
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3 votes
0 answers
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Understanding WISE acronyms

I've enoucntered many acronyms related between them, like AllWISE, WISE, NEOWISE, CatWISE, WISEA, WISEAR, WISEAF, WISEU, WISEP, WISEPA, WISEPC, WISEF, WISEPF, WISER, WISEWF, WISET, WISETF, WISENF... ...
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6 votes
2 answers
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How can I calculate the uncertainties in magnitude like the CDS does?

When you check an entry of the Gaia DR2 stellar catalogue in Vizier, for example this one, you can see that there is a value for the G magnitude (in our case 18.0733 mag) and a value for the ...
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4 votes
1 answer
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Catalogs for type K stars and their planetary systems?

I am doing data collection on all type K stars, and their planetary system so I may develop an algorithm for a planetary formation simulation with the Unity game engine. Where could such a catalog of ...
0 votes
1 answer
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What does G/IG signify in the galaxy names ESO 012- G 014 and ESO 293-IG 034?

The NASA/IPAC EXTRAGALACTIC DATABASE (NED) lists galaxies from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) catalog as G (ESO 012- G 014) or IG (ESO 293-IG 034). What does G/IG signify?
2 votes
1 answer
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Are there any good DSO API's for python out there?

I was wondering if there was good DSO database API out there for python so I could fetch things like a distance away from Earth or radius etc. I tried looking however couldn't find the exact thing I ...
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1 vote
1 answer
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How is the distance of a star from Earth calculated in the HYG star database

The HYG star database can be found here From the hygdata_v3.csv file, how are the cartesian (x,y,z) coordinates calculated? (Is there a mathematical formula for this?) And in the dso.csv file, there ...
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0 votes
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What are Stokes parameters for galaxy shapes, how do they compare to Stokes parameters in optics?

I remember Stokes parameters as a way to completely define the polarization state of a well-defined beam of light. However several questions here refer to Stokes parameters used in characterizing the ...
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5 votes
1 answer
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Who discovered Wolf 359?

I always assumed that Wolf 359's discoverer had been Max Wolf, but I just found out that he simply measured its high proper movement and included it in his star catalog. Since Wolf 359 is a very ...
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5 votes
2 answers
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Difference between J2000, FK5 and ICRS coordinate systems? Which one does the Yale Bright Star Catalog use?

I have no background in astronomy. I have been wanting to write code to make star charts for a given location and time, which led to this question. I figured out that I would need to convert the ...
2 votes
1 answer
204 views

How to query a region on the sky when given only ecliptic coordinates?

I am new at using the Python packages astropy/astroquery and what I want to achieve is to use it to find stars that lay on the TESS continuous view zone (CVZ). I ...
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4 votes
1 answer
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Does the Sun have a numerical designation in any star catalogues?

Given the existence of large star catalogues listing millions of astronomical objects with numerical designations (such as Tabby's Star, KIC 8462852) it occurred to me that one of them might contain ...
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2 votes
1 answer
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Which database of celestial objects do stargazing apps use?

Stargazing apps such as Star Walk must have a database with a list of celestial objects, their names and details and each of their celestial coordinates. I am interested to know which database these ...
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4 votes
1 answer
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Why does the number of extrasolar planets vary in different sources?

There are at least three catalogues that are counting up-to-date discovered exoplanets. What criteria do they use to count the number of planets? Every catalogue has a different count value. So at ...
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2 votes
1 answer
60 views

For stars around 13th magnitude, are their entries in various catalogues usually linked, or does one do this manually?

@MikeG's speedy answer to "What star was the asteroid 2014 MU69 predicted to occult on 2018-08-04?" lists three names for one 13th magnitude star, from three catalogues; 2MASS, UCAC4, and Gaia DR2. ...
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3 votes
1 answer
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How can I convert Bayer/Flamsteed designations to Hipparchos numbers?

In a text file I have a table of star data with Bayer/Flamsteed designations. I need to convert these into Hipparchos numbers. How can I automatically do this?
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