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General Discussion => Q&A Section => Topic started by: cube on 02/16/2022 03:40 am

Title: Catalog of stars
Post by: cube on 02/16/2022 03:40 am

Good evening, does anyone know if there is a particular stars catalog that is used by professional astronomers and if so is it accessible to the general public?

Title: Re: Catalog of stars
Post by: Eer on 02/16/2022 04:10 am

One place to start would be Wikipedia's entry for "Star Catalogue" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_catalogue.  It contains a brief history of catalogues, and a list of several and links to where they may be found.

Title: Re: Catalog of stars
Post by: jcm on 02/16/2022 04:37 am

There are hundreds of star catalogs for different purposes. But you can get a long way with two:
 - the Yale Bright Star Catalog, for the brightest stars
 - GAIA Early Data Release 3, for the faint ones
All of our catalogs are public, but it will take you some work to find them and figure out the formats.

Title: Re: Catalog of stars
Post by: jebbo on 02/16/2022 05:51 am

And for lookups, SIMBAD is a good place to start

http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/

--- Tony

Title: Re: Catalog of stars
Post by: cube on 02/17/2022 01:13 am

I imagine that among all these catalogs there are some which have more precise measurements of the distance of the stars for example

Title: Re: Catalog of stars
Post by: jebbo on 02/17/2022 06:46 am

Quote from: cube on 02/17/2022 01:13 am

I imagine that among all these catalogs there are some which have more precise measurements of the distance of the stars for example

For distances, as Jonathan said above, Gaia EDR3 is the place to go (the full release will be later this year).

https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/gaia/earlydr3

--- Tony

Title: Re: Catalog of stars
Post by: cube on 02/18/2022 05:23 pm

Thank you ! :)