Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-12T08:47:58.070Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The use of machine-readable astronomical catalogs at small observatories

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 August 2017

Wayne H. Warren Jr.
Wayne H. Warren Jr.*
Affiliation:
Astronomical Data Center (ADC), National Space Science Data Center, Code 633 NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, Maryland 20771 U.S.A.

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

The development of computer controlled telescopes at small observatories has dramatically increased the demand for and potential usefulness of astronomical catalogs in machine-readable form. The compilation and storage of catalogs containing program and standard stars are obvious necessities for the operation of an automatic telescope, but to date most observers have been collecting their own data and manually entering them into microcomputer disk storage. (This is clear from the small number of machine catalogs distributed by the ADC to smaller observatories.) Astronomical data centers located in several countries around the world currently archive, maintain and disseminate a wide variety of machine catalogs in virtually every discipline of astronomy, and these facilities can provide observers with nearly any kind of data needed for controlling telescopes (positional catalogs), reducing data (catalogs of all types of photometry, spectroscopy, etc.) and providing access to fundamental quantities needed for the interpretation of observations (catalogs of binaries, variables, radial and rotational velocities, etc.). The ADC presently has approximately 450 machine catalogs in its archives and these are available to observatories upon request. Procedures for obtaining data from the ADC and policies for distribution are described in this paper, while a list of all catalogs available can be obtained by contacting the ADC.

Type
II. Photometric Research Programmes
Information
Symposium - International Astronomical Union , Volume 118: Instrumentation and Research Programmes for Small Telescopes , 1986 , pp. 321 - 322
Copyright
Copyright © Reidel 1986 

References

Fricke, W. and Kopff, A. 1963, Fourth Fundamental Catalogue (FK4) and Supplement, Veröff. Astron. Rechen-Inst., Heidelberg, Nos. 10, 11.Google Scholar
Hauck, B. and Mermilliod, M. 1985, Astron. Astrophys. Suppl. 60 61.Google Scholar
Høg, E. and von der Heide, J. 1976, Perth 70, Positions of 24900 Stars, Abh. der Hamburger Sternwarte, Band IX.Google Scholar
Kukarkin, B. V., Kholopov, P. N., Artiukhina, N. M., Fedorovich, V. P., Frolov, M. S., Goranskij, V. P., Gorynya, N. A., Karitskaya, E. A., Kireeva, N. N., Kukarkina, N. P., Kurochkin, N. E., Medvedeva, G. I., Perova, N. B., Ponomareva, G. A., Samus’, N. N. and Shugarov, S. Yu. 1982, New Catalogue of Suspected Variable Stars (Moscow: Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R.).Google Scholar
Mermilliod, J.-C. 1983, Bull. Inform. Centre Données Stellaires, No. 25, p. 79.Google Scholar
Mermilliod, J.-C. and Nicolet, B. 1977, Astron. Astrophys. Suppl. 29, 259.Google Scholar
Nicolet, B. 1978, Astron. Astrophys. Suppl. 34, 1.Google Scholar