Information About Star Catalogs

Bright Star Catalog, 5th Ed.

The Bright Star Catalogue (BSC) is widely used as a source of basic astronomical and astrophysical data for stars brighter than magnitude 6.5. Contains 9110 objects.

This catalog is available in downloadable zipped format from the CDS website.
The catalog is either zipped or in text format.
Website: ftp://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/pub/cats/I/239/
Ftpsite: adc.gsfc.nasa.gov, in directory /pub/adc/archives/catalogs/5/5050
page last updated 1995/07/13
(ADC common name 'HR')
Note: Before running the star catalog binary building utility on this catalog, the dat file must be unzipped to a text file.

Fifth Fundamental Catalog

FK5 Part II ( aka FK5 Extension) provides mean positions and proper motion for stars with an even distribution over the sky. Part II extends the orginial 1,535 objects by 3117, resulting in 4652 objects. The complete FK5 catalog has an average density of one star every 8.9 degrees. Great care was taken to ensure an even distribution over the sky and in both magnitude (to 9th) and spectral type.

This catalog is available in downloadable zipped format from the ADC website.
The catalog is either zipped or in text format.
Website: http://adc.gsfc.nasa.gov/adc-cgi/cat.pl?/catalogs/1/1149A
             http://adc.gsfc.nasa.gov/adc-cgi/cat.pl?/catalogs/1/1175As
Ftpsite: adc.gsfc.nasa.gov, in directory /pub/adc/archives/catalogs/1/1175
            adc.gsfc.nasa.gov, in directory /pub/adc/archives/catalogs/1/1149A
page last updated 1997/06/17
(ADC common name 'FK5')
Note: Before running the star catalog binary building utility on this catalog, the dat files must be unzipped to text files and the two parts (original and extension) must be added together. Simply appending the extension onto the back of the original part of the catalog file is sufficient.

HST Guide Star Catalog version 1.1

The Guide Star Catalog (GSC), which has been constructed to support the operational need of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) for off-axis guide stars, contains nearly 19 million objects brighter than sixteenth magnitude, of which more than 15 million are classified as stars.

This catalog is available in downloadable zipped format from the ADC website.
The catalog is in binary format. There are two updated versions, 1.2 & 1.3 (GSC ACT)
but these are not yet available for online download. (2000/06/08)
Website: http://adc.gsfc.nasa.gov/adc-cgi/cat.pl?/catalogs/1/1220
Ftpsite: cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr in dir /pub/cats/bincats/GSC_ACT/
page last updated 1992
(ADC common name 'GSC', 'GSC-ACT')
Note: Before running the star catalog binary building utility on this catalog, the text file must be constructed. This text file requires 1.5 gigabytes of disk space. Using the utility gsc_decode, the individual gsc files are decoded from binary to text format and then the text file is appended to the end of the main gsc catalog file. This main gsc catalog file will be used by the catalog construction application to build the Guide Star Catalog binary file. The gsc_decode utility may have to be editted and recompiled to make sure the correct pathes are specified.

IRTF Star Catalog

This catalog is a combination of some BSC5 and Henry Draper stars. However, all objects in this catalog are also present in the SAO catalog. While the original catalog was compiled straight from the SAO catalog (which required that the SAO catalog be built first) The current version is a simple text file containing the output of the old catalog.

Custom/User Source Star Catalogs

Visitors may bring their own custom catalogs to use with starcat. They are built using the IRTF format.
A template can be found here. See building catalogs for more information on building custom catalogs

SAO Star Catalog

A catalogue of 258,997 stars, mostly down to magnitude 8.5 plus a few dimmer stars, published by the Smithsonian Astronomical Observatory.

This catalog is available in downloadable zipped format from the SAO website.
The catalog is either zipped or in text format.
Website: http://tdc-www.harvard.edu/software/catalogs/sao.html
             http://adc.gsfc.nasa.gov/adc-cgi/cat.pl?/catalogs/1/1131A
Ftpsite: adc.gsfc.nasa.gov, in directory /pub/adc/archives/catalogs/1/1131A
page last updated 1995/10/25, SAO staff
(ADC common name 'SAO')
Note: Before running the star catalog binary building utility on this catalog, the dat file must be unzipped to a text file.

UKIRT Faint Standards, Revised Ed.

This catalog is available in html format from the UKIRT website.
The catalog is not in application-readable format.
Website: http://www.jach.hawaii.edu/JACpublic/UKIRT/astronomy/calib/faint_stds.html
page last updated 2000/02/11, Tim Hawarden
Note: Before running the star catalog binary building utility on this catalog, the html file must be converted to the expected text format for the building routine to interprete.

Henry Draper Catalogue and Extention.

The Henry Draper Catalogue with 225,300 entries was completed in 1924 and for many years has been the standard source for magnitudes and spectral types. Star contained in the catalog are of medium magnitude (down to 9th). HD numbers are widely used today.

The catalog is in application-readable format.
Website: http://adc.gsfc.nasa.gov/adc-cgi/cat.pl?/catalogs/3/3135A
page last updated 1993/10/11 by ADC Staff
Note: The Entire Henry Draper catalog is contained within the SAO catalog. HD_SAO is this enhanced version.

Astronomical Data Centre (ADC)

This website (http://adc.gsfc.nasa.gov/adc/quick_ref/common_names.html) is a good source of star catalogs.