Does this exist? I have Cartes Du Ciel which goes down to 12, but would like to go deeper if possible.
Software showing stars down to mag 14 or deeper
Started by NGC88888, 03/25/2003 06:14PM
Posted 03/25/2003 06:14PM
Opening Post
Posted 03/25/2003 06:56PM
#1
trying to find a new planet? :-)
Posted 03/25/2003 11:05PM
#2
TheSky will do it and perhaps others such as SkyTool, etc. However, beware that the data from these stars mostly come from the GSC catalog which is notorious for their inaccuracy (+/- 1 magnitude I've been told). The best source of accurate data is still via photometric data I'm afraid. Still it is better than nothing ;-).
Ron B[ee]
Ron B[ee]
Posted 03/26/2003 10:48PM
#4
Ryan,
I went in search of the same thing, in my case because I wanted to display every star I could see in the field of a 16" scope when I was playing "what's that object" or "what's the faintest thing in the field". There doesn't seem to be a perfect solution, but the following three Catalogs will take you deeper than the Tycho catalog in Cartes du Ciel, which has "hooks" to allow youto display them. "The Sky" level 4 can use them as well. Other programs may use them, but these are the only two I've tried first-hand.
1. Hubble Space Telescope (HST) guide stars-- 19 million stars down to Mag 15. The GSC-ACT is a more compact storage of this data, with the coordinates adjusted to correspond to those of the Tycho catalog. Fits on one or two CD's.
2. USNO SA 2.0-- 55 million stars, mostly mag 16-19 Fits on a CD, I believe
3. USNO A 2.0: 525+ million stars down to mag 20. Takes 10 CD's.
The problems with the HST and USNO SA catologues in my experience are: 1. they are intended for guiding purposes rather than as a comprehensive sky survey, hence in densely populated areas of the sky they omit a fair number of stars; 2. because they are compiled by computer, they contain some spurious data (spikes from bright stars etc.) and can have coordinates-- or more typically, magnitudes-- that are somewhat off. The GSC and USNO SA datasets would seem to be complimentary in their coverage by magnitude, but in fact they overlap a fair bit and if you have both toggled on in your planetarium software, some brighter objects may be displayed at least three times (once by each catalog plus whatever stellar baseline data your software uses). This is visually confusing, although you can de-conflict things by looking at the data for each object displayed.
The USNO A 2.0 dataset I believe is comprehensive (with half a billion stars, you'd certainly think so!) but is too large to be distributed in toto over the internet, and the Naval Observatory has run out of copies to give out. Bill Gray of Project Pluto has started a number of sets circulating on a "loaner" basis for folks to copy and pass on. (I've got one, in fact.)
Hope this helps!
Jim
I went in search of the same thing, in my case because I wanted to display every star I could see in the field of a 16" scope when I was playing "what's that object" or "what's the faintest thing in the field". There doesn't seem to be a perfect solution, but the following three Catalogs will take you deeper than the Tycho catalog in Cartes du Ciel, which has "hooks" to allow youto display them. "The Sky" level 4 can use them as well. Other programs may use them, but these are the only two I've tried first-hand.
1. Hubble Space Telescope (HST) guide stars-- 19 million stars down to Mag 15. The GSC-ACT is a more compact storage of this data, with the coordinates adjusted to correspond to those of the Tycho catalog. Fits on one or two CD's.
2. USNO SA 2.0-- 55 million stars, mostly mag 16-19 Fits on a CD, I believe
3. USNO A 2.0: 525+ million stars down to mag 20. Takes 10 CD's.
The problems with the HST and USNO SA catologues in my experience are: 1. they are intended for guiding purposes rather than as a comprehensive sky survey, hence in densely populated areas of the sky they omit a fair number of stars; 2. because they are compiled by computer, they contain some spurious data (spikes from bright stars etc.) and can have coordinates-- or more typically, magnitudes-- that are somewhat off. The GSC and USNO SA datasets would seem to be complimentary in their coverage by magnitude, but in fact they overlap a fair bit and if you have both toggled on in your planetarium software, some brighter objects may be displayed at least three times (once by each catalog plus whatever stellar baseline data your software uses). This is visually confusing, although you can de-conflict things by looking at the data for each object displayed.
The USNO A 2.0 dataset I believe is comprehensive (with half a billion stars, you'd certainly think so!) but is too large to be distributed in toto over the internet, and the Naval Observatory has run out of copies to give out. Bill Gray of Project Pluto has started a number of sets circulating on a "loaner" basis for folks to copy and pass on. (I've got one, in fact.)
Hope this helps!
Jim
Funding Member
