Star Catalogs

The Hipparcos-Tycho catalog is the primary star database displayed at 7-degree fields of view and wider.  At smaller fields of view, stars from the Gaia subset database are displayed.  This database contains about 80 million stars that are distributed evenly across the celestial sphere making it ideal for astrometric solutions.

 

TheSky also cross-references stars from the following catalogs:

 

·       Bayer/Flamsteed Designations

·       Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory Catalog (SAO)

·       Positions and Proper Motion Catalog (PPM)

·       Henry Draper Catalog (HD)

 

Star Catalog Name

Details/Object Count

Hipparcos/Tycho Stellar Catalog

1.2 million stars, complete to magnitude 12

 

Gaia Star Catalog (Data Release 3)

Gaia Catalog options:

 

·        Full Gaia catalog support: Contains 1.806 billion stars to about magnitude 19 with all Gaia metadata (> 2 TB) is available from the Gaia archive.

·        Large Gaia subset: Contains 1.806 billion stars with the essential star data and is available on the optional TheSky Databases module SSD.

·        Small Gaia subset: Contains about 80 million stars with essential star data and is included with TheSky’s full installers or can be downloaded from the Software Bisque website.

 

General Catalog of Variable Stars (GCVS)

40,214 variable stars

 

New Suspected Variable Star Catalog (NSV)

13,490 suspected variable stars

 

Struve Double Star Catalog

4,307 double stars

 

Washington Catalog of Double Stars (WDS)

102,139 double stars

Legacy star catalogs

While TheSky can still show stars from the legacy star catalogs below, the Hipparcos/Tycho and Gaia catalogs included with the latest versions of TheSky are recommended for optimal astrometry results.

 

Legacy Star Catalog Name

Details

Hubble Guide Star Catalog (GSC) Version 1.2

19 million stars, complete to about 14th magnitude

UCAC4/UCAC3

·        TheSky Pro standard installer previously distributed a subset of the UCAC star catalog that contained approximately 30 million stars evenly distributed across the celestial sphere. The limiting magnitude of the UCAC4 Subset catalog was approximately 14.

·        Version 2.5 of the optional Databases module previously included the complete UCAC4 catalog with 100 million stars.

 

NOMAD

The Databases module versions 1.0 – 2.5 included the NOMAD star catalog with 1.1 billion stars with stars to about magnitude 19.