Object database preferences

If you were going online to access an astronomical object database, how would you prefer it be structured? Like a table with specifics on the object and then a photo and a drawing, or would you rather it be a shot of the object and then a paragraph-style description such as is found in Burnhams? Should such a database be two part, descriptive and then specifics tables?

My vote would be for an Excel Spreadsheet, with a link in the "picture" column. As a spreadsheet, I could re-sort and filter as I needed. I could sort things by size or by RA, or whatever.

Alex

Richard,

Have you ever looked at Messier45.com? I love it. Messiers, NGCs, whatever catalog number you might have. Try it, you'll like it.

Rick

Hello:
Three major databases that professionals use are SIMBAD, Vizier, and NED. With SIMBAD, you can give the name of the target, and it retieves data like position, brightness, and what kind of object it is, with links to images and references. Vizier is a clearing house for astronomical catalogs, and allows online browsing of these catalogs. You can search for objects within a catalog, such as for a star brighter than 15th magnitude within 10' of a certain position. NED is an extragalactic oriented database, which I don't use much since my field is star formation. But the extragalactic guys use it all the time.

Cheers
Mike Connelley