Star catalogue
Encyclopedia
A star catalogue, or star catalog, is an astronomical catalogue that lists star
s. In astronomy
, many stars are referred to simply by catalogue numbers. There are a great many different star catalogues which have been produced for different purposes over the years, and this article covers only some of the more frequently quoted ones. Star catalogues were compiled by many different ancient peoples, including the Babylonia
ns, Greeks
, Chinese
, Persians
and Arab
s. Most modern catalogues are available in electronic format and can be freely downloaded from NASA
's Astronomical Data Center.
recorded the names of only a few identifiable constellation
s and a list of thirty-six decans
that were used as a star clock
. The Egyptians called the circumpolar star
'the star that cannot perish' and, although they made no known formal star catalogues, they nonetheless created extensive star chart
s of the night sky which adorn the coffins and ceilings of tomb chambers.
Although the ancient Sumer
ians were the first to record the names of constellations on clay tablet
s, the earliest known star catalogues
were compiled by the ancient Babylonians of Mesopotamia
in the late 2nd millennium BC, during the Kassite Period
(ca. 1531 BC to ca. 1155 BC). They are better known by their Assyrian-era name 'Three Stars Each'. These star catalogues, written on clay tablets
, listed thirty-six stars: twelve for 'Anu
' along the celestial equator
, twelve for 'Ea
' south of that, and twelve for 'Enlil
' to the north. The Mul.Apin
lists, dated to sometime before the Neo-Babylonian Empire
(626-539 BC), are direct textual descendants of the 'Three Stars Each' lists and their constellation patterns show similarities to those of later Greek civilization
.
, the astronomer and mathematician Eudoxus
laid down a full set of the classical constellation
s around 370 BC. His catalogue Phaenomena, rewritten by Aratus of Soli between 275 and 250 BC as a didactic poem, became one of the most consulted astronomical texts in antiquity
and beyond. It contains descriptions of the positions of the stars, the shapes of the constellations and provided information on their relative times of rising and setting.
Approximately in the 3rd century BC, the Greek astronomers
Timocharis of Alexandria and Aristillus
created another star catalogue. Hipparchus
(c. 190 – c. 120 BC) completed his star catalogue in 129 BC, which he compared to Timocharis
' and discovered that the longitude
of the stars had changed over time. This led him to determine the first value of the precession of the equinoxes
. In the 2nd century, Ptolemy
(c. 90 - c. 186 AD) of Roman Egypt published a star catalogue as part of his Almagest
, which listed 1,022 stars visible from Alexandria
. Ptolemy's catalogue was based almost entirely on an earlier one by Hipparchus (Newton 1977; Rawlins 1982). It remained the standard star catalogue in the Western and Arab
worlds for over eight centuries. The Islamic astronomer al-Sufi updated it in 964, and the star positions were redetermined by Ulugh Beg
in 1437, but it was not fully superseded until the appearance of the thousand-star catalogue of Tycho Brahe
in 1598.
Although the ancient Vedas
of India specified how the ecliptic
was to be divided into twenty-eight nakshatra
, Indian constellation patterns were ultimately borrowed from Greek ones sometime after Alexander's conquests in Asia in the 4th century BC.
were written on oracle bone
s and date to the Shang Dynasty
(c. 1600 - c. 1050 BC). Sources dating from the Zhou Dynasty
(c. 1050 - 256 BC) which provide star names include the Zuo Zhuan
, the Shi Jing
, and the "Canon of Yao" (堯典) in the Book of Documents. The Lüshi Chunqiu
written by the Qin
statesman Lü Buwei
(d. 235 BC) provides most of the names for the twenty-eight mansions
(i.e. asterisms
across the ecliptic
belt of the celestial sphere
used for constructing the calendar
). An earlier lacquerware
chest found in the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng
(interred in 433 BC) contains a complete list of the names of the twenty-eight mansions. Star catalogues are traditionally attributed to Shi Shen
and Gan De
, two rather obscure Chinese astronomer
s who may have been active in the 4th century BC of the Warring States Period
(403-221 BC). The Shi Shen astronomy (石申天文, Shi Shen tienwen) is attributed to Shi Shen, and the Astronomic star observation (天文星占, Tianwen xingzhan) to Gan De.
It was not until the Han Dynasty
(202 BC - 220 AD) that astronomers started to observe and record names for all the stars that were apparent (to the naked eye
) in the night sky, not just those around the ecliptic. A star catalogue is featured in one of the chapters of the late 2nd-century-BC history work Records of the Grand Historian
by Sima Qian
(145-86 BC) and contains the "schools" of Shi Shen and Gan De's work (i.e. the different constellations they allegedly focused on for astrological purposes). Sima's catalogue—the Book of Celestial Offices (天官書 Tianguan shu)—includes some 90 constellations, the stars therein named after temples
, ideas in philosophy
, locations such as markets and shops, and different people such as farmers and soldiers. For his Spiritual Constitution of the Universe (靈憲, Ling Xian) of 120 AD, the astronomer Zhang Heng
(78-139 AD) compiled a star catalogue comprising 124 constellations. Chinese constellation
names were later adopted by the Korea
ns and Japan
ese.
in the medieval Islamic world
. These were mainly Zij
treatises, including Arzachel's Tables of Toledo
(1087), the Maragheh observatory
's Zij-i Ilkhani
(1272) and Ulugh Beg
's Zij-i-Sultani
(1437). Other famous Arabic
star catalogues include Alfraganus' A compendium of the science of stars (850) which corrected Ptolemy's Almagest; and Azophi's Book of Fixed Stars
(964) which described observations of the star
s, their positions, magnitudes
, brightness and colour, drawings for each constellation
, and the first descriptions of Andromeda Galaxy
and the Large Magellanic Cloud
. Many stars are still known by their Arabic names (see List of Arabic star names).
. The Maya Paris Codex also contain symbols for different constellations which were represented by mythological beings.
astronomer Johann Bayer
's (1572–1625) Uranometria
published in 1603 and is for bright stars. These are given a Greek letter
followed by the genitive case
of the constellation
in which they are located; examples are Alpha Centauri
or Gamma Cygni
. The major problem with Bayer's naming system was the number of letters in the Greek alphabet
(24). It was easy to run out of letters before running out of stars needing names, particularly for large constellations such as Argo Navis
. Bayer extended his lists up to 67 stars by using lower-case Roman letters ("a" through "z") then upper-case ones ("A" through "Q"). Few of those designations have survived. It is worth mentioning, however, as it served as the starting point for variable star designations, which start with "R" through "Z", then "RR", "RS", "RT"..."RZ", "SS", "ST"..."ZZ" and beyond.
The second system comes from the English astronomer John Flamsteed
's (1646–1719) Historia coelestis Britannica. It kept the genitive-of-the-constellation rule for the back end of his catalog names, but used numbers instead of the Greek alphabet for the front half. Examples include 61 Cygni
and 47 Ursae Majoris
.
s, so this is an impossible goal; these kind of catalogs generally try to get every star brighter than a given magnitude
.
published the Histoire Céleste Française
in 1801, which contained an extensive star catalog, among other things. The observations made were made from the Paris Observatory
and so it describes mostly northern stars. This catalog contained the positions and magnitudes of 47,390 stars, out to magnitude 9, and was the most complete catalog up to that time. A significant reworking of this catalog in 1846 added reference numbers to the stars that are used to refer to some of these stars to this day. The decent accuracy of this catalog kept it in common use as a reference by observatories around the world throughout the 19th century.
The catalogue was compiled by Annie Jump Cannon
and her co-workers at Harvard College Observatory
under the supervision of Edward Charles Pickering
, and was named in honour of Henry Draper
, whose widow donated the money required to finance it.
HD numbers are widely used today for stars which have no Bayer or Flamsteed designation. Stars numbered 1–225300 are from the original catalogue and are numbered in order of right ascension
for the 1900.0 epoch
. Stars in the range 225301–359083 are from the 1949 extension of the catalogue. The notation HDE can be used for stars in this extension, but they are usually denoted HD as the numbering ensures that there can be no ambiguity.
catalogue was compiled in 1966 from various previous astrometric
catalogues, and contains only the stars to about ninth magnitude for which accurate proper motions were known. There is considerable overlap with the Henry Draper catalogue, but any star lacking motion data is omitted. The epoch
for the position measurements in the latest edition is J2000.0. The SAO catalogue contains this major piece of information not in Draper, the proper motion
of the stars, so it is often used when that fact is of importance. The cross-references with the Draper and Durchmusterung catalogue numbers in the latest edition are also useful.
Names in the SAO catalogue start with the letters SAO, followed by a number. The numbers are assigned following 18 ten-degree bands in the sky, with stars sorted by right ascension
within each band.
One of the first stars in the SAO catalogue to be named after someone is SAO#13268 - Calaunan, Named after Rio Therese Calaunan Capistrano.
sampling) and follow-ups were the most complete of the pre-photographic star catalogues.
The Bonner Durchmusterung itself was published by Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander
, Adalbert Krüger, and Eduard Schönfeld between 1852 and 1859. It covered 320,000 stars in epoch 1855.0.
As it covered only the northern sky and some of the south (being compiled from the Bonn
observatory), this was then supplemented by the Südliche Durchmusterung (SD), which covers stars between declinations -1 and -23 degrees
(1886, 120,000 stars). It was further supplemented by the Cordoba Durchmusterung (580,000 stars), which began to be compiled at Córdoba, Argentina
in 1892 under the initiative of John M. Thome
and covers declinations -22 to -90. Lastly, the Cape Photographic Durchmusterung (450,000 stars, 1896), compiled at the Cape, South Africa, covers declinations -18 to -90.
Astronomers preferentially use the HD designation of a star, as that catalogue also gives spectroscopic
information, but as the Durchmusterungs cover more stars they occasionally fall back on the older designations when dealing with one not found in Draper. Unfortunately, a lot of catalogues cross-reference the Durchmusterungs without specifying which one is used in the zones of overlap, so some confusion often remains.
Star names from these catalogues include the initials of which of the four catalogues they are from (though the Southern follows the example of the Bonner and uses BD; CPD is often shortened to CP), followed by the angle of declination
of the star (rounded towards zero, and thus ranging from +00 to +89 and -00 to -89), followed by an arbitrary number as there are always thousands of stars at each angle. Examples include BD+50°1725 or CD-45°13677.
programme designed to photograph and measure the positions of all stars brighter than magnitude 11.0. In total, over 4.6 million stars were observed, many as faint as 13th magnitude. This project was started in the late 19th century. The observations were made between 1891 and 1950. To observe the entire celestial sphere without burdening too many institutions, the sky was divided among 20 observatories, by declination zones. Each observatory exposed and measured the plates of its zone, using a standardized telescope (a "normal astrograph
") so each plate photographed had a similar scale of approximately 60 arcsecs/mm. The U.S. Naval Observatory took over custody of the catalogue, now in its 2000.2 edition.
), that presents positions, proper motions, magnitudes in various optical passbands, and star/galaxy estimators for 1,042,618,261 objects derived from 3,643,201,733 separate observations. The data was obtained from scans of 7,435 Schmidt
plates taken for the various sky surveys during the last 50 years. USNO-B1.0 is believed to provide all-sky coverage, completeness down to V = 21, 0.2 arcsecond astrometric accuracy at J2000.0, 0.3 magnitude photometric accuracy in up to five colors, and 85% accuracy for distinguishing stars from non-stellar objects. USNO-B is now followed by NOMAD; both can be found on the Naval Observatory server. The Naval Observatory
is currently working on B2 and C variants of the USNO catalog series.
program. The first version of the catalog was produced in the late 1980s by digitizing photographic plates and contained about 20 million stars, out to about magnitude 15. The latest version of this catalog contains information for 945,592,683 stars, out to magnitude 21. The latest version continues to be used to accurately position the Hubble Space Telescope
.
or nearby stars.
's double star
catalogue
This lists 17,180 double stars north of declination
-30 degrees.
Catalog of Bright Stars, this catalog contained information on all stars brighter than visual magnitude
6.5 in the Harvard Revised Photometry Catalogue. The list was revised in 1983 with the publication of a supplement that listed additional stars down to magnitude 7.1. The catalog detailed each star's coordinates, proper motion
s, photometric
data, spectral types, and other useful information.
The last printed version of the Bright Star Catalogue was the 4th revised edition, released in 1982. The 5th edition is in electronic form and is available online.
s.
(later Gliese-Jahreiß
) catalogue attempts to list all star systems within 20 parsecs of Earth
ordered by right ascension
(see the List of nearest stars). Later editions expanded the coverage to 25 parsecs. Numbers in the range 1.0–915.0 (Gl numbers) are from the second edition, which was
The integers up to 915 represent systems which were in the first edition. Numbers with a decimal point were used to insert new star systems for the second edition without destroying the desired order (by right ascension
). This catalogue is referred to as CNS2, although this name is never used in catalogue numbers.
Numbers in the range 9001–9850 (Wo numbers) are from the supplement
Numbers in the ranges 1000–1294 and 2001–2159 (GJ numbers) are from the supplement
The range 1000–1294 represents nearby stars, while 2001–2159 represents suspected nearby stars. In the literature, the GJ numbers are sometimes retroactively extended to the Gl numbers (since there is no overlap). For example, Gliese 436 can be interchangeably referred to as either Gl 436 or GJ 436.
Numbers in the range 3001–4388 are from
Although this version of the catalogue was termed "preliminary", it is still the current one , and is referred to as CNS3. It lists a total of 3,803 stars. Most of these stars already had GJ numbers, but there were also 1,388 which were not numbered. The need to give these 1,388 some name has resulted in them being numbered 3001–4388 (NN numbers, for "no name"), and data files of this catalogue now usually include these numbers. An example of a star which is often referred to by one of these unofficial GJ numbers is GJ 3021
.
's astrometric satellite Hipparcos
, which was operational from 1989 to 1993. The catalogue was published in June 1997 and contains 118,218 stars; an updated version with re-processed data was published in 2007. It is particularly notable for its parallax
measurements, which are considerably more accurate than those produced by ground-based observations. See Stellar parallax
and List of stars in the Hipparcos Catalogue.
is one of best, both in the proper motion and star position till 1999. Not as precise as Hipparcos
catalogue but with many more stars. The PPM was built from BD, SAO, HD and more, with sophisticated algorithm and is an extension for the Fifth Fundamental Catalogue, "Catalogues of Fundamental Stars".
and Wolf catalogues pioneered the domain:
Willem Jacob Luyten
later produced a series of catalogues:
L - Luyten, Proper motion stars and White dwarfs
LFT - Luyten Five-Tenths catalogue
LHS - Luyten Half-Second catalogue
LTT - Luyten Two-Tenths catalogue
NLTT - New Luyten Two-Tenths catalogue
LPM - Luyten Proper-Motion catalogue
Around the same time period, Henry Lee Giclas worked on a similar series of catalogs:
; and the latest refined, updated catalogs are reduced and produced by NOFS and the USNO
. See the USNO
Catalog and Image Servers for more information and access.
Star
A star is a massive, luminous sphere of plasma held together by gravity. At the end of its lifetime, a star can also contain a proportion of degenerate matter. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, which is the source of most of the energy on Earth...
s. In astronomy
Astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
, many stars are referred to simply by catalogue numbers. There are a great many different star catalogues which have been produced for different purposes over the years, and this article covers only some of the more frequently quoted ones. Star catalogues were compiled by many different ancient peoples, including the Babylonia
Babylonia
Babylonia was an ancient cultural region in central-southern Mesopotamia , with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged as a major power when Hammurabi Babylonia was an ancient cultural region in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq), with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged as...
ns, Greeks
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
, Chinese
History of China
Chinese civilization originated in various regional centers along both the Yellow River and the Yangtze River valleys in the Neolithic era, but the Yellow River is said to be the Cradle of Chinese Civilization. With thousands of years of continuous history, China is one of the world's oldest...
, Persians
History of Iran
The history of Iran has been intertwined with the history of a larger historical region, comprising the area from the Danube River in the west to the Indus River and Jaxartes in the east and from the Caucasus, Caspian Sea, and Aral Sea in the north to the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman and Egypt...
and Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
s. Most modern catalogues are available in electronic format and can be freely downloaded from NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
's Astronomical Data Center.
Ancient Near East
From their existing records, it is known that the ancient EgyptiansEgyptian astronomy
Egyptian astronomy begins in prehistoric times, in the Predynastic Period. In the 5th millennium BCE, the stone circles at Nabta Playa may have made use of astronomical alignments...
recorded the names of only a few identifiable constellation
Constellation
In modern astronomy, a constellation is an internationally defined area of the celestial sphere. These areas are grouped around asterisms, patterns formed by prominent stars within apparent proximity to one another on Earth's night sky....
s and a list of thirty-six decans
Decans
The Decans are 36 groups of stars which rise consecutively on the horizon throughout each earth rotation...
that were used as a star clock
Star clock
A star clock is a method of using the stars to determine the time. This is accomplished by measure the Big Dipper's position in the sky based on a standard clock, and then employing simple addition and subtraction. This method requires no tools; others use an astrolabe and a planisphere.A clock's...
. The Egyptians called the circumpolar star
Circumpolar star
A circumpolar star is a star that, as viewed from a given latitude on Earth, never sets , due to its proximity to one of the celestial poles...
'the star that cannot perish' and, although they made no known formal star catalogues, they nonetheless created extensive star chart
Star chart
A star chart is a map of the night sky. Astronomers divide these into grids to use them more easily. They are used to identify and locate astronomical objects such as stars, constellations and galaxies. They have been used for human navigation since time immemorial...
s of the night sky which adorn the coffins and ceilings of tomb chambers.
Although the ancient Sumer
Sumer
Sumer was a civilization and historical region in southern Mesopotamia, modern Iraq during the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age....
ians were the first to record the names of constellations on clay tablet
Clay tablet
In the Ancient Near East, clay tablets were used as a writing medium, especially for writing in cuneiform, throughout the Bronze Age and well into the Iron Age....
s, the earliest known star catalogues
Babylonian star catalogues
Babylonian astronomy collated earlier observations and divinations into sets of Babylonian star catalogues, during and after the Kassite rule over Babylonia. These star catalogues, written in cuneiform script, contained lists of constellations, individual stars, and planets...
were compiled by the ancient Babylonians of Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran.Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the...
in the late 2nd millennium BC, during the Kassite Period
Kassites
The Kassites were an ancient Near Eastern people who gained control of Babylonia after the fall of the Old Babylonian Empire after ca. 1531 BC to ca. 1155 BC...
(ca. 1531 BC to ca. 1155 BC). They are better known by their Assyrian-era name 'Three Stars Each'. These star catalogues, written on clay tablets
Enuma anu enlil
Enuma Anu Enlil is a major series of 68 or 70 tablets dealing with Babylonian astrology...
, listed thirty-six stars: twelve for 'Anu
Anu
In Sumerian mythology, Anu was a sky-god, the god of heaven, lord of constellations, king of gods, Consort of Antu, spirits and demons, and dwelt in the highest heavenly regions. It was believed that he had the power to judge those who had committed crimes, and that he had created the stars as...
' along the celestial equator
Celestial equator
The celestial equator is a great circle on the imaginary celestial sphere, in the same plane as the Earth's equator. In other words, it is a projection of the terrestrial equator out into space...
, twelve for 'Ea
Enki
Enki is a god in Sumerian mythology, later known as Ea in Akkadian and Babylonian mythology. He was originally patron god of the city of Eridu, but later the influence of his cult spread throughout Mesopotamia and to the Canaanites, Hittites and Hurrians...
' south of that, and twelve for 'Enlil
Enlil
Elizabeth Barrett Browning was one of the most prominent poets of the Victorian era. Her poetry was widely popular in both England and the United States during her lifetime. A collection of her last poems was published by her husband, Robert Browning, shortly after her death.-Early life:Members...
' to the north. The Mul.Apin
MUL.APIN
MUL.APIN is the conventional title given to a Babylonian compendium that deals with many diverse aspects of Babylonian astronomy and astrology....
lists, dated to sometime before the Neo-Babylonian Empire
Neo-Babylonian Empire
The Neo-Babylonian Empire or Second Babylonian Empire was a period of Mesopotamian history which began in 626 BC and ended in 539 BC. During the preceding three centuries, Babylonia had been ruled by their fellow Akkadian speakers and northern neighbours, Assyria. Throughout that time Babylonia...
(626-539 BC), are direct textual descendants of the 'Three Stars Each' lists and their constellation patterns show similarities to those of later Greek civilization
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
.
Hellenistic world and Roman Empire
In Ancient GreeceAncient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
, the astronomer and mathematician Eudoxus
Eudoxus of Cnidus
Eudoxus of Cnidus was a Greek astronomer, mathematician, scholar and student of Plato. Since all his own works are lost, our knowledge of him is obtained from secondary sources, such as Aratus's poem on astronomy...
laid down a full set of the classical constellation
Constellation
In modern astronomy, a constellation is an internationally defined area of the celestial sphere. These areas are grouped around asterisms, patterns formed by prominent stars within apparent proximity to one another on Earth's night sky....
s around 370 BC. His catalogue Phaenomena, rewritten by Aratus of Soli between 275 and 250 BC as a didactic poem, became one of the most consulted astronomical texts in antiquity
Classical antiquity
Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...
and beyond. It contains descriptions of the positions of the stars, the shapes of the constellations and provided information on their relative times of rising and setting.
Approximately in the 3rd century BC, the Greek astronomers
Greek astronomy
Greek astronomy is astronomy written in the Greek language in classical antiquity. Greek astronomy is understood to include the ancient Greek, Hellenistic, Greco-Roman, and Late Antiquity eras. It is not limited geographically to Greece or to ethnic Greeks, as the Greek language had become the...
Timocharis of Alexandria and Aristillus
Aristillus
Aristillus was a Greek astronomer, presumably of the school of Timocharis . He was among the earliest meridian-astronomy observers....
created another star catalogue. Hipparchus
Hipparchus
Hipparchus, the common Latinization of the Greek Hipparkhos, can mean:* Hipparchus, the ancient Greek astronomer** Hipparchic cycle, an astronomical cycle he created** Hipparchus , a lunar crater named in his honour...
(c. 190 – c. 120 BC) completed his star catalogue in 129 BC, which he compared to Timocharis
Timocharis
Timocharis of Alexandria was a Greek astronomer and philosopher. Likely born in Alexandria, he was a contemporary of Euclid....
' and discovered that the longitude
Longitude
Longitude is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east-west position of a point on the Earth's surface. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees, minutes and seconds, and denoted by the Greek letter lambda ....
of the stars had changed over time. This led him to determine the first value of the precession of the equinoxes
Precession of the equinoxes
In astronomy, axial precession is a gravity-induced, slow and continuous change in the orientation of an astronomical body's rotational axis. In particular, it refers to the gradual shift in the orientation of Earth's axis of rotation, which, like a wobbling top, traces out a pair of cones joined...
. In the 2nd century, Ptolemy
Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemy , was a Roman citizen of Egypt who wrote in Greek. He was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology. He lived in Egypt under Roman rule, and is believed to have been born in the town of Ptolemais Hermiou in the...
(c. 90 - c. 186 AD) of Roman Egypt published a star catalogue as part of his Almagest
Almagest
The Almagest is a 2nd-century mathematical and astronomical treatise on the apparent motions of the stars and planetary paths. Written in Greek by Claudius Ptolemy, a Roman era scholar of Egypt,...
, which listed 1,022 stars visible from Alexandria
Alexandria
Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...
. Ptolemy's catalogue was based almost entirely on an earlier one by Hipparchus (Newton 1977; Rawlins 1982). It remained the standard star catalogue in the Western and Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
worlds for over eight centuries. The Islamic astronomer al-Sufi updated it in 964, and the star positions were redetermined by Ulugh Beg
Ulugh Beg
Ulugh Bek was a Timurid ruler as well as an astronomer, mathematician and sultan. His commonly-known name is not truly a personal name, but rather a moniker, which can be loosely translated as "Great Ruler" or "Patriarch Ruler" and was the Turkic equivalent of Timur's Perso-Arabic title Amīr-e...
in 1437, but it was not fully superseded until the appearance of the thousand-star catalogue of Tycho Brahe
Tycho Brahe
Tycho Brahe , born Tyge Ottesen Brahe, was a Danish nobleman known for his accurate and comprehensive astronomical and planetary observations...
in 1598.
Although the ancient Vedas
Vedas
The Vedas are a large body of texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute the oldest layer of Sanskrit literature and the oldest scriptures of Hinduism....
of India specified how the ecliptic
Ecliptic
The ecliptic is the plane of the earth's orbit around the sun. In more accurate terms, it is the intersection of the celestial sphere with the ecliptic plane, which is the geometric plane containing the mean orbit of the Earth around the Sun...
was to be divided into twenty-eight nakshatra
Nakshatra
Nakshatra is the term for lunar mansion in Hindu astrology. A nakshatra is one of 27 sectors along the ecliptic...
, Indian constellation patterns were ultimately borrowed from Greek ones sometime after Alexander's conquests in Asia in the 4th century BC.
Ancient China
The earliest known inscriptions for Chinese star namesChinese astronomy
Astronomy in China has a very long history, with historians considering that "they [the Chinese] were the most persistent and accurate observers of celestial phenomena anywhere in the world before the Arabs."...
were written on oracle bone
Oracle bone
Oracle bones are pieces of bone normally from ox scapula or turtle plastron which were used for divination chiefly during the late Shang Dynasty. The bones were first inscribed with divination in oracle bone script by using a bronze pin, and then heated until crack lines appeared in which the...
s and date to the Shang Dynasty
Shang Dynasty
The Shang Dynasty or Yin Dynasty was, according to traditional sources, the second Chinese dynasty, after the Xia. They ruled in the northeastern regions of the area known as "China proper" in the Yellow River valley...
(c. 1600 - c. 1050 BC). Sources dating from the Zhou Dynasty
Zhou Dynasty
The Zhou Dynasty was a Chinese dynasty that followed the Shang Dynasty and preceded the Qin Dynasty. Although the Zhou Dynasty lasted longer than any other dynasty in Chinese history, the actual political and military control of China by the Ji family lasted only until 771 BC, a period known as...
(c. 1050 - 256 BC) which provide star names include the Zuo Zhuan
Zuo Zhuan
The Zuo Zhuan , sometimes translated as the Chronicle of Zuo or the Commentary of Zuo, is among the earliest Chinese works of narrative history and covers the period from 722 BCE to 468 BCE. It is one of the most important sources for understanding the history of the Spring and Autumn Period...
, the Shi Jing
Shi Jing
The Classic of Poetry , translated variously as the Book of Songs, the Book of Odes, and often known simply as its original name The Odes, is the earliest existing collection of Chinese poems and songs. It comprises 305 poems and songs, with many range from the 10th to the 7th centuries BC...
, and the "Canon of Yao" (堯典) in the Book of Documents. The Lüshi Chunqiu
Lüshi Chunqiu
The Lüshi Chunqiu is an encyclopedic Chinese classic text compiled around 239 BCE under the patronage of the Qin Dynasty Chancellor Lü Buwei...
written by the Qin
Qin (state)
The State of Qin was a Chinese feudal state that existed during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods of Chinese history...
statesman Lü Buwei
Lü Buwei
Lü Buwei , Lord Wenxin 文信侯 was a Warring States Period merchant who schemed his way into governing the State of Qin. He served as Chancellor of China for King Zhuangxiang of Qin, and as regent and Chancellor for the king's young son Zheng, who became Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China...
(d. 235 BC) provides most of the names for the twenty-eight mansions
Twenty-eight mansions
The Twenty-eight Mansions , ', ' or ' are part of the Chinese constellations system. They can be considered as the equivalent to the zodiacal constellations in the Western astronomy, though the Twenty-eight Mansions reflect the movement of the Moon in a lunar month rather than the Sun in a solar year...
(i.e. asterisms
Asterism (astronomy)
In astronomy, an asterism is a pattern of stars recognized on Earth's night sky. It may form part of an official constellation, or be composed of stars from more than one. Like constellations, asterisms are in most cases composed of stars which, while they are visible in the same general direction,...
across the ecliptic
Ecliptic
The ecliptic is the plane of the earth's orbit around the sun. In more accurate terms, it is the intersection of the celestial sphere with the ecliptic plane, which is the geometric plane containing the mean orbit of the Earth around the Sun...
belt of the celestial sphere
Celestial sphere
In astronomy and navigation, the celestial sphere is an imaginary sphere of arbitrarily large radius, concentric with the Earth and rotating upon the same axis. All objects in the sky can be thought of as projected upon the celestial sphere. Projected upward from Earth's equator and poles are the...
used for constructing the calendar
Chinese calendar
The Chinese calendar is a lunisolar calendar, incorporating elements of a lunar calendar with those of a solar calendar. It is not exclusive to China, but followed by many other Asian cultures as well...
). An earlier lacquerware
Lacquerware
Lacquerware are objects decoratively covered with lacquer. The lacquer is sometimes inlaid or carved. Lacquerware includes boxes, tableware, buttons and even coffins painted with lacquer in cultures mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere.-History:...
chest found in the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng
Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng
The Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng is an important archaeological site in Suizhou, Hubei, China, dated sometime after 433 BCE. The tomb contained the remains of Marquis Yi of Zeng...
(interred in 433 BC) contains a complete list of the names of the twenty-eight mansions. Star catalogues are traditionally attributed to Shi Shen
Shi Shen
Shi Shen was a Chinese astronomer and contemporary of Gan De born in the State of Wei, also known as the Master Shi Shen .-Observations:...
and Gan De
Gan De
Gan De was a Chinese astronomer/astrologer born in the State of Qi also known as the Lord Gan . Along with Shi Shen, he is believed to be the first in history known by name to compile a star catalogue, preceded by the anonymous authors of the early Babylonian star catalogues and followed by the...
, two rather obscure Chinese astronomer
Chinese astronomy
Astronomy in China has a very long history, with historians considering that "they [the Chinese] were the most persistent and accurate observers of celestial phenomena anywhere in the world before the Arabs."...
s who may have been active in the 4th century BC of the Warring States Period
Warring States Period
The Warring States Period , also known as the Era of Warring States, or the Warring Kingdoms period, covers the Iron Age period from about 475 BC to the reunification of China under the Qin Dynasty in 221 BC...
(403-221 BC). The Shi Shen astronomy (石申天文, Shi Shen tienwen) is attributed to Shi Shen, and the Astronomic star observation (天文星占, Tianwen xingzhan) to Gan De.
It was not until the Han Dynasty
Han Dynasty
The Han Dynasty was the second imperial dynasty of China, preceded by the Qin Dynasty and succeeded by the Three Kingdoms . It was founded by the rebel leader Liu Bang, known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu of Han. It was briefly interrupted by the Xin Dynasty of the former regent Wang Mang...
(202 BC - 220 AD) that astronomers started to observe and record names for all the stars that were apparent (to the naked eye
Naked eye
The naked eye is a figure of speech referring to human visual perception unaided by a magnifying or light-collecting optical device, such as a telescope or microscope. Vision corrected to normal acuity using corrective lenses is considered "naked"...
) in the night sky, not just those around the ecliptic. A star catalogue is featured in one of the chapters of the late 2nd-century-BC history work Records of the Grand Historian
Records of the Grand Historian
The Records of the Grand Historian, also known in English by the Chinese name Shiji , written from 109 BC to 91 BC, was the Magnum opus of Sima Qian, in which he recounted Chinese history from the time of the Yellow Emperor until his own time...
by Sima Qian
Sima Qian
Sima Qian was a Prefect of the Grand Scribes of the Han Dynasty. He is regarded as the father of Chinese historiography for his highly praised work, Records of the Grand Historian , a "Jizhuanti"-style general history of China, covering more than two thousand years from the Yellow Emperor to...
(145-86 BC) and contains the "schools" of Shi Shen and Gan De's work (i.e. the different constellations they allegedly focused on for astrological purposes). Sima's catalogue—the Book of Celestial Offices (天官書 Tianguan shu)—includes some 90 constellations, the stars therein named after temples
Temple (Chinese)
A Chinese temple can refer to any temple which is used for the practice of Chinese folk religion, a conglomeration of China's three main religions: Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism...
, ideas in philosophy
Chinese philosophy
Chinese philosophy is philosophy written in the Chinese tradition of thought. The majority of traditional Chinese philosophy originates in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States era, during a period known as the "Hundred Schools of Thought", which was characterized by significant intellectual and...
, locations such as markets and shops, and different people such as farmers and soldiers. For his Spiritual Constitution of the Universe (靈憲, Ling Xian) of 120 AD, the astronomer Zhang Heng
Zhang Heng
Zhang Heng was a Chinese astronomer, mathematician, inventor, geographer, cartographer, artist, poet, statesman, and literary scholar from Nanyang, Henan. He lived during the Eastern Han Dynasty of China. He was educated in the capital cities of Luoyang and Chang'an, and began his career as a...
(78-139 AD) compiled a star catalogue comprising 124 constellations. Chinese constellation
Chinese constellation
Chinese constellations are the way the ancient Chinese grouped the stars. They are very different from the modern IAU recognized constellations. This is because the IAU was based on Greco-Roman astronomy instead of Chinese astronomy....
names were later adopted by the Korea
Korea
Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...
ns and Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese.
Islamic world
A large number of star catalogues were published by Muslim astronomersIslamic astronomy
Islamic astronomy or Arabic astronomy comprises the astronomical developments made in the Islamic world, particularly during the Islamic Golden Age , and mostly written in the Arabic language. These developments mostly took place in the Middle East, Central Asia, Al-Andalus, and North Africa, and...
in the medieval Islamic world
Islamic Golden Age
During the Islamic Golden Age philosophers, scientists and engineers of the Islamic world contributed enormously to technology and culture, both by preserving earlier traditions and by adding their own inventions and innovations...
. These were mainly Zij
Zij
Zīj is the generic name applied to Islamic astronomical books that tabulate parameters used for astronomical calculations of the positions of the Sun, Moon, stars, and planets. The name is derived from the Middle Persian term zih or zīg, meaning cord...
treatises, including Arzachel's Tables of Toledo
Tables of Toledo
The Toledan Tables, or Tables of Toledo, were astronomical tables which were used to predict the movements of the Sun, Moon and planets relative to the fixed stars...
(1087), the Maragheh observatory
Maragheh observatory
Maragheh observatory is an astronomical observatory which was established in 1259 CE by Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, an Iranian scientist and astronomer...
's Zij-i Ilkhani
Zij-i Ilkhani
Zīj-i Īlkhānī or Ilkhanic Tables is a Zij book with astronomical tables of planetary movements. It was compiled by the Persian astronomer Nasir al-Din al-Tusi in collaboration with his research team of astronomers at the Maragha observatory...
(1272) and Ulugh Beg
Ulugh Beg
Ulugh Bek was a Timurid ruler as well as an astronomer, mathematician and sultan. His commonly-known name is not truly a personal name, but rather a moniker, which can be loosely translated as "Great Ruler" or "Patriarch Ruler" and was the Turkic equivalent of Timur's Perso-Arabic title Amīr-e...
's Zij-i-Sultani
Zij-i-Sultani
Zīj-i Sultānī is a Zij astronomical table and star catalogue that was published by Ulugh Beg in 1437. It was the joint product of the work of a group of Muslim astronomers working under the patronage of Ulugh Beg at Samarkand's Ulugh Beg Observatory...
(1437). Other famous Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
star catalogues include Alfraganus' A compendium of the science of stars (850) which corrected Ptolemy's Almagest; and Azophi's Book of Fixed Stars
Book of Fixed Stars
The Book of Fixed Stars is an astronomical text written by Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi around 964. The book was written in Arabic, although the author himself was Persian...
(964) which described observations of the star
Star
A star is a massive, luminous sphere of plasma held together by gravity. At the end of its lifetime, a star can also contain a proportion of degenerate matter. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, which is the source of most of the energy on Earth...
s, their positions, magnitudes
Apparent magnitude
The apparent magnitude of a celestial body is a measure of its brightness as seen by an observer on Earth, adjusted to the value it would have in the absence of the atmosphere...
, brightness and colour, drawings for each constellation
Constellation
In modern astronomy, a constellation is an internationally defined area of the celestial sphere. These areas are grouped around asterisms, patterns formed by prominent stars within apparent proximity to one another on Earth's night sky....
, and the first descriptions of Andromeda Galaxy
Andromeda Galaxy
The Andromeda Galaxy is a spiral galaxy approximately 2.5 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Andromeda. It is also known as Messier 31, M31, or NGC 224, and is often referred to as the Great Andromeda Nebula in older texts. Andromeda is the nearest spiral galaxy to the...
and the Large Magellanic Cloud
Large Magellanic Cloud
The Large Magellanic Cloud is a nearby irregular galaxy, and is a satellite of the Milky Way. At a distance of slightly less than 50 kiloparsecs , the LMC is the third closest galaxy to the Milky Way, with the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal and Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy lying closer to the center...
. Many stars are still known by their Arabic names (see List of Arabic star names).
Pre-Columbian Americas
The Motul Dictionary, compiled in the 16th century by an anonymous author (although attributed to Fray Antonio de Ciudad Real), contains a list of stars originally observed by the ancient MayasMaya civilization
The Maya is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as for its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. Initially established during the Pre-Classic period The Maya is a Mesoamerican...
. The Maya Paris Codex also contain symbols for different constellations which were represented by mythological beings.
Bayer and Flamsteed catalogues
Two systems introduced in historical catalogues remain in use to the present day. The first system comes from the GermanGermans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
astronomer Johann Bayer
Johann Bayer
Johann Bayer was a German lawyer and uranographer . He was born in Rain, Bavaria, in 1572. He began his study of philosophy in Ingolstadt in 1592, and moved later to Augsburg to begin work as a lawyer. He grew interested in astronomy during his time in Augsburg...
's (1572–1625) Uranometria
Uranometria
Uranometria is the short title of a star atlas produced by Johann Bayer.It was published in Augsburg, Germany, in 1603 by Christophorus Mangus under the full title Uranometria : omnium asterismorum continens schemata, nova methodo delineata, aereis laminis expressa. This translates to...
published in 1603 and is for bright stars. These are given a Greek letter
Greek alphabet
The Greek alphabet is the script that has been used to write the Greek language since at least 730 BC . The alphabet in its classical and modern form consists of 24 letters ordered in sequence from alpha to omega...
followed by the genitive case
Genitive case
In grammar, genitive is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun...
of the constellation
Constellation
In modern astronomy, a constellation is an internationally defined area of the celestial sphere. These areas are grouped around asterisms, patterns formed by prominent stars within apparent proximity to one another on Earth's night sky....
in which they are located; examples are Alpha Centauri
Alpha Centauri
Alpha Centauri is the brightest star in the southern constellation of Centaurus...
or Gamma Cygni
Gamma Cygni
Gamma Cygni is a star in the constellation Cygnus. It has the traditional name Sadr ....
. The major problem with Bayer's naming system was the number of letters in the Greek alphabet
Greek alphabet
The Greek alphabet is the script that has been used to write the Greek language since at least 730 BC . The alphabet in its classical and modern form consists of 24 letters ordered in sequence from alpha to omega...
(24). It was easy to run out of letters before running out of stars needing names, particularly for large constellations such as Argo Navis
Argo Navis
Argo Navis was a large constellation in the southern sky that has since been divided into three constellations. It represented the Argo, the ship used by Jason and the Argonauts in Greek mythology...
. Bayer extended his lists up to 67 stars by using lower-case Roman letters ("a" through "z") then upper-case ones ("A" through "Q"). Few of those designations have survived. It is worth mentioning, however, as it served as the starting point for variable star designations, which start with "R" through "Z", then "RR", "RS", "RT"..."RZ", "SS", "ST"..."ZZ" and beyond.
The second system comes from the English astronomer John Flamsteed
John Flamsteed
Sir John Flamsteed FRS was an English astronomer and the first Astronomer Royal. He catalogued over 3000 stars.- Life :Flamsteed was born in Denby, Derbyshire, England, the only son of Stephen Flamsteed...
's (1646–1719) Historia coelestis Britannica. It kept the genitive-of-the-constellation rule for the back end of his catalog names, but used numbers instead of the Greek alphabet for the front half. Examples include 61 Cygni
61 Cygni
61 Cygni,Not to be confused with 16 Cygni, a more distant system containing two G-type stars harboring the gas giant planet 16 Cygni Bb. sometimes called Bessel's Star or Piazzi's Flying Star, is a binary star system in the constellation Cygnus...
and 47 Ursae Majoris
47 Ursae Majoris
47 Ursae Majoris is a solar analog, yellow dwarf star approximately 46 light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Ursa Major. , it has been confirmed that three Jupiter-like extrasolar planets orbit the star...
.
Full-sky catalogues
Bayer and Flamsteed covered only a few thousand stars between them. In theory, full-sky catalogues try to list every star in the sky. There are, however, literally hundreds of millions, even billions of stars resolvable by telescopeTelescope
A telescope is an instrument that aids in the observation of remote objects by collecting electromagnetic radiation . The first known practical telescopes were invented in the Netherlands at the beginning of the 1600s , using glass lenses...
s, so this is an impossible goal; these kind of catalogs generally try to get every star brighter than a given magnitude
Apparent magnitude
The apparent magnitude of a celestial body is a measure of its brightness as seen by an observer on Earth, adjusted to the value it would have in the absence of the atmosphere...
.
LAL
Jérôme LalandeJérôme Lalande
Joseph Jérôme Lefrançois de Lalande was a French astronomer and writer.-Biography:Lalande was born at Bourg-en-Bresse...
published the Histoire Céleste Française
Histoire Céleste Française
Histoire Céleste Française is an astrometric star catalogue published in 1801 by the French astronomer Jérôme Lalande and his staff at the Paris Observatory. This star catalog consists of the locations and apparent magnitudes of 47,390 stars, up to magnitude 9...
in 1801, which contained an extensive star catalog, among other things. The observations made were made from the Paris Observatory
Paris Observatory
The Paris Observatory is the foremost astronomical observatory of France, and one of the largest astronomical centres in the world...
and so it describes mostly northern stars. This catalog contained the positions and magnitudes of 47,390 stars, out to magnitude 9, and was the most complete catalog up to that time. A significant reworking of this catalog in 1846 added reference numbers to the stars that are used to refer to some of these stars to this day. The decent accuracy of this catalog kept it in common use as a reference by observatories around the world throughout the 19th century.
HD/HDE
The Henry Draper Catalogue was published in the period 1918–1924. It covers the whole sky down to about ninth or tenth magnitude, and is notable as the first large-scale attempt to catalogue spectral types of stars.The catalogue was compiled by Annie Jump Cannon
Annie Jump Cannon
Annie Jump Cannon was an American astronomer whose cataloging work was instrumental in the development of contemporary stellar classification. With Edward C...
and her co-workers at Harvard College Observatory
Harvard College Observatory
The Harvard College Observatory is an institution managing a complex of buildings and multiple instruments used for astronomical research by the Harvard University Department of Astronomy. It is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, and was founded in 1839...
under the supervision of Edward Charles Pickering
Edward Charles Pickering
Edward Charles Pickering was an American astronomer and physicist, brother of William Henry Pickering.Along with Carl Vogel, Pickering discovered the first spectroscopic binary stars. He wrote Elements of Physical Manipulations .Pickering attended Boston Latin School, and received his B.S. from...
, and was named in honour of Henry Draper
Henry Draper
Henry Draper was an American doctor and amateur astronomer. He is best known today as a pioneer of astrophotography.-Life and work:...
, whose widow donated the money required to finance it.
HD numbers are widely used today for stars which have no Bayer or Flamsteed designation. Stars numbered 1–225300 are from the original catalogue and are numbered in order of right ascension
Right ascension
Right ascension is the astronomical term for one of the two coordinates of a point on the celestial sphere when using the equatorial coordinate system. The other coordinate is the declination.-Explanation:...
for the 1900.0 epoch
Epoch (astronomy)
In astronomy, an epoch is a moment in time used as a reference point for some time-varying astronomical quantity, such as celestial coordinates, or elliptical orbital elements of a celestial body, where these are subject to perturbations and vary with time...
. Stars in the range 225301–359083 are from the 1949 extension of the catalogue. The notation HDE can be used for stars in this extension, but they are usually denoted HD as the numbering ensures that there can be no ambiguity.
SAO
The Smithsonian Astrophysical ObservatorySmithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory is a research institute of the Smithsonian Institution headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where it is joined with the Harvard College Observatory to form the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics .-History:The SAO was founded in 1890 by...
catalogue was compiled in 1966 from various previous astrometric
Astrometry
Astrometry is the branch of astronomy that involves precise measurements of the positions and movements of stars and other celestial bodies. The information obtained by astrometric measurements provides information on the kinematics and physical origin of our Solar System and our Galaxy, the Milky...
catalogues, and contains only the stars to about ninth magnitude for which accurate proper motions were known. There is considerable overlap with the Henry Draper catalogue, but any star lacking motion data is omitted. The epoch
Epoch (astronomy)
In astronomy, an epoch is a moment in time used as a reference point for some time-varying astronomical quantity, such as celestial coordinates, or elliptical orbital elements of a celestial body, where these are subject to perturbations and vary with time...
for the position measurements in the latest edition is J2000.0. The SAO catalogue contains this major piece of information not in Draper, the proper motion
Proper motion
The proper motion of a star is its angular change in position over time as seen from the center of mass of the solar system. It is measured in seconds of arc per year, arcsec/yr, where 3600 arcseconds equal one degree. This contrasts with radial velocity, which is the time rate of change in...
of the stars, so it is often used when that fact is of importance. The cross-references with the Draper and Durchmusterung catalogue numbers in the latest edition are also useful.
Names in the SAO catalogue start with the letters SAO, followed by a number. The numbers are assigned following 18 ten-degree bands in the sky, with stars sorted by right ascension
Right ascension
Right ascension is the astronomical term for one of the two coordinates of a point on the celestial sphere when using the equatorial coordinate system. The other coordinate is the declination.-Explanation:...
within each band.
One of the first stars in the SAO catalogue to be named after someone is SAO#13268 - Calaunan, Named after Rio Therese Calaunan Capistrano.
BD/CD/CPD
The Bonner Durchmusterung (German: BonnBonn
Bonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....
sampling) and follow-ups were the most complete of the pre-photographic star catalogues.
The Bonner Durchmusterung itself was published by Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander
Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander
Friedrich Wilhelm August Argelander was a German astronomer. He is known for his determinations of stellar brightnesses, positions, and distances.- Life and work :...
, Adalbert Krüger, and Eduard Schönfeld between 1852 and 1859. It covered 320,000 stars in epoch 1855.0.
As it covered only the northern sky and some of the south (being compiled from the Bonn
Bonn
Bonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....
observatory), this was then supplemented by the Südliche Durchmusterung (SD), which covers stars between declinations -1 and -23 degrees
(1886, 120,000 stars). It was further supplemented by the Cordoba Durchmusterung (580,000 stars), which began to be compiled at Córdoba, Argentina
Córdoba, Argentina
Córdoba is a city located near the geographical center of Argentina, in the foothills of the Sierras Chicas on the Suquía River, about northwest of Buenos Aires. It is the capital of Córdoba Province. Córdoba is the second-largest city in Argentina after the federal capital Buenos Aires, with...
in 1892 under the initiative of John M. Thome
John M. Thome
John Macon Thome was an American-Argentine astronomer. Some sources say John Macom Thome. He is sometimes known as Juan M...
and covers declinations -22 to -90. Lastly, the Cape Photographic Durchmusterung (450,000 stars, 1896), compiled at the Cape, South Africa, covers declinations -18 to -90.
Astronomers preferentially use the HD designation of a star, as that catalogue also gives spectroscopic
Spectroscopy
Spectroscopy is the study of the interaction between matter and radiated energy. Historically, spectroscopy originated through the study of visible light dispersed according to its wavelength, e.g., by a prism. Later the concept was expanded greatly to comprise any interaction with radiative...
information, but as the Durchmusterungs cover more stars they occasionally fall back on the older designations when dealing with one not found in Draper. Unfortunately, a lot of catalogues cross-reference the Durchmusterungs without specifying which one is used in the zones of overlap, so some confusion often remains.
Star names from these catalogues include the initials of which of the four catalogues they are from (though the Southern follows the example of the Bonner and uses BD; CPD is often shortened to CP), followed by the angle of declination
Declination
In astronomy, declination is one of the two coordinates of the equatorial coordinate system, the other being either right ascension or hour angle. Declination in astronomy is comparable to geographic latitude, but projected onto the celestial sphere. Declination is measured in degrees north and...
of the star (rounded towards zero, and thus ranging from +00 to +89 and -00 to -89), followed by an arbitrary number as there are always thousands of stars at each angle. Examples include BD+50°1725 or CD-45°13677.
AC
The Catalogue astrographique (Astrographic Catalogue) was part of the international Carte du CielCarte du Ciel
The Carte du Ciel and the Astrographic Catalogue were two distinct but connected components of a massive international astronomical project, initiated in the late 19th century, to catalogue and map the positions of millions of stars as faint as 11th or 12th magnitude...
programme designed to photograph and measure the positions of all stars brighter than magnitude 11.0. In total, over 4.6 million stars were observed, many as faint as 13th magnitude. This project was started in the late 19th century. The observations were made between 1891 and 1950. To observe the entire celestial sphere without burdening too many institutions, the sky was divided among 20 observatories, by declination zones. Each observatory exposed and measured the plates of its zone, using a standardized telescope (a "normal astrograph
Astrograph
An astrograph is a telescope designed for the sole purpose of astrophotography. Astrographs are usually used in wide field surveys of the night sky as well as detection of objects such as asteroids, meteors, and comets.-Design:...
") so each plate photographed had a similar scale of approximately 60 arcsecs/mm. The U.S. Naval Observatory took over custody of the catalogue, now in its 2000.2 edition.
USNO-B1.0
USNO-B1.0 is an all-sky catalog created by research and operations astrophysicists at the U.S. Naval Observatory (as developed at the United States Naval Observatory Flagstaff StationUnited States Naval Observatory Flagstaff Station
The United States Naval Observatory Flagstaff Station , is a scientific astronomical observatory operated as a Navy Echelon V command and the national dark-sky observing Facility/observatory subordinate to the United States Naval Observatory . USNO and NOFS are commands within the CNMOC claimancy,...
), that presents positions, proper motions, magnitudes in various optical passbands, and star/galaxy estimators for 1,042,618,261 objects derived from 3,643,201,733 separate observations. The data was obtained from scans of 7,435 Schmidt
Schmidt camera
A Schmidt camera, also referred to as the Schmidt telescope, is a catadioptric astrophotographic telescope designed to provide wide fields of view with limited aberrations. Other similar designs are the Wright Camera and Lurie-Houghton telescope....
plates taken for the various sky surveys during the last 50 years. USNO-B1.0 is believed to provide all-sky coverage, completeness down to V = 21, 0.2 arcsecond astrometric accuracy at J2000.0, 0.3 magnitude photometric accuracy in up to five colors, and 85% accuracy for distinguishing stars from non-stellar objects. USNO-B is now followed by NOMAD; both can be found on the Naval Observatory server. The Naval Observatory
United States Naval Observatory Flagstaff Station
The United States Naval Observatory Flagstaff Station , is a scientific astronomical observatory operated as a Navy Echelon V command and the national dark-sky observing Facility/observatory subordinate to the United States Naval Observatory . USNO and NOFS are commands within the CNMOC claimancy,...
is currently working on B2 and C variants of the USNO catalog series.
GSC
The Guide Star Catalog is an online catalog of stars produced for the purpose of accurately positioning and identifying stars satisfactory for use as guide stars by the Hubble Space TelescopeHubble Space Telescope
The Hubble Space Telescope is a space telescope that was carried into orbit by a Space Shuttle in 1990 and remains in operation. A 2.4 meter aperture telescope in low Earth orbit, Hubble's four main instruments observe in the near ultraviolet, visible, and near infrared...
program. The first version of the catalog was produced in the late 1980s by digitizing photographic plates and contained about 20 million stars, out to about magnitude 15. The latest version of this catalog contains information for 945,592,683 stars, out to magnitude 21. The latest version continues to be used to accurately position the Hubble Space Telescope
Hubble Space Telescope
The Hubble Space Telescope is a space telescope that was carried into orbit by a Space Shuttle in 1990 and remains in operation. A 2.4 meter aperture telescope in low Earth orbit, Hubble's four main instruments observe in the near ultraviolet, visible, and near infrared...
.
Specialized catalogues
Specialized catalogs make no effort to list all the stars in the sky, working instead to highlight a particular type of star, such as variablesVariable star
A star is classified as variable if its apparent magnitude as seen from Earth changes over time, whether the changes are due to variations in the star's actual luminosity, or to variations in the amount of the star's light that is blocked from reaching Earth...
or nearby stars.
ADS
AitkenRobert Grant Aitken
Robert Grant Aitken was an American astronomer.He worked at Lick Observatory in California. He systematically studied double stars, measuring their positions and calculating their orbits around one another...
's double star
Double star
In observational astronomy, a double star is a pair of stars that appear close to each other in the sky as seen from Earth when viewed through an optical telescope. This can happen either because the pair forms a binary star, i.e...
catalogue
- New general catalogue of double stars within 120 deg of the North Pole (1932, R. G. Aitken).
This lists 17,180 double stars north of declination
Declination
In astronomy, declination is one of the two coordinates of the equatorial coordinate system, the other being either right ascension or hour angle. Declination in astronomy is comparable to geographic latitude, but projected onto the celestial sphere. Declination is measured in degrees north and...
-30 degrees.
BS, BSC, HR
First published in 1930 as the YaleYale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
Catalog of Bright Stars, this catalog contained information on all stars brighter than visual magnitude
Apparent magnitude
The apparent magnitude of a celestial body is a measure of its brightness as seen by an observer on Earth, adjusted to the value it would have in the absence of the atmosphere...
6.5 in the Harvard Revised Photometry Catalogue. The list was revised in 1983 with the publication of a supplement that listed additional stars down to magnitude 7.1. The catalog detailed each star's coordinates, proper motion
Proper motion
The proper motion of a star is its angular change in position over time as seen from the center of mass of the solar system. It is measured in seconds of arc per year, arcsec/yr, where 3600 arcseconds equal one degree. This contrasts with radial velocity, which is the time rate of change in...
s, photometric
Photometry (astronomy)
Photometry is a technique of astronomy concerned with measuring the flux, or intensity of an astronomical object's electromagnetic radiation...
data, spectral types, and other useful information.
The last printed version of the Bright Star Catalogue was the 4th revised edition, released in 1982. The 5th edition is in electronic form and is available online.
Carbon Stars
Stephenson's General Catalogue of galactic Carbon stars is a catalogue of 7000+ carbon starCarbon star
A carbon star is a late-type star similar to a red giant whose atmosphere contains more carbon than oxygen; the two elements combine in the upper layers of the star, forming carbon monoxide, which consumes all the oxygen in the atmosphere, leaving carbon atoms free to form other carbon compounds,...
s.
Gl, GJ, Wo
The GlieseWilhelm Gliese
Wilhelm Gliese was a German astronomer who specialized in the study and cataloging of nearby stars.-Life:Gliese was born in Goldberg, now in Polish Silesia, the son of judge Wilhelm Gliese. He worked at the Astronomisches Rechen-Institut, first in Berlin and then in Heidelberg...
(later Gliese-Jahreiß
Hartmut Jahreiß
Hartmut Jahreiß is a German astronomer associated with Astronomisches Rechen-Institut specializing in the study of nearby stars.-Work:Hartmut Jahreiß obtained his Ph.D from the University of Heidelberg. His thesis was on the spatial distribution, kinetics and age of stars near the Sun...
) catalogue attempts to list all star systems within 20 parsecs of Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
ordered by right ascension
Right ascension
Right ascension is the astronomical term for one of the two coordinates of a point on the celestial sphere when using the equatorial coordinate system. The other coordinate is the declination.-Explanation:...
(see the List of nearest stars). Later editions expanded the coverage to 25 parsecs. Numbers in the range 1.0–915.0 (Gl numbers) are from the second edition, which was
- Catalogue of Nearby Stars (1969, W. Gliese).
The integers up to 915 represent systems which were in the first edition. Numbers with a decimal point were used to insert new star systems for the second edition without destroying the desired order (by right ascension
Right ascension
Right ascension is the astronomical term for one of the two coordinates of a point on the celestial sphere when using the equatorial coordinate system. The other coordinate is the declination.-Explanation:...
). This catalogue is referred to as CNS2, although this name is never used in catalogue numbers.
Numbers in the range 9001–9850 (Wo numbers) are from the supplement
- Extension of the Gliese catalogue (1970, R. WoolleyRichard van der Riet WoolleyRichard van der Riet Woolley was an English astronomer who became Astronomer Royal. His mother's maiden name was Van der Riet....
, E. A. Epps, M. J. Penston and S. B. Pocock).
Numbers in the ranges 1000–1294 and 2001–2159 (GJ numbers) are from the supplement
- Nearby Star Data Published 1969–1978 (1979, W. Gliese and H. Jahreiß).
The range 1000–1294 represents nearby stars, while 2001–2159 represents suspected nearby stars. In the literature, the GJ numbers are sometimes retroactively extended to the Gl numbers (since there is no overlap). For example, Gliese 436 can be interchangeably referred to as either Gl 436 or GJ 436.
Numbers in the range 3001–4388 are from
- Preliminary Version of the Third Catalogue of Nearby Stars (1991, W. Gliese and H. Jahreiß).
Although this version of the catalogue was termed "preliminary", it is still the current one , and is referred to as CNS3. It lists a total of 3,803 stars. Most of these stars already had GJ numbers, but there were also 1,388 which were not numbered. The need to give these 1,388 some name has resulted in them being numbered 3001–4388 (NN numbers, for "no name"), and data files of this catalogue now usually include these numbers. An example of a star which is often referred to by one of these unofficial GJ numbers is GJ 3021
GJ 3021
GJ 3021, formally cataloged as Gliese 3021, is a binary star system approximately 57 light-years away in the constellation of Hydrus ....
.
GCTP
The General Catalogue of Trigonometric Parallaxes, first published in 1952 and later superseded by the New GCTP (now in its fourth edition), covers nearly 9,000 stars. Unlike the Gliese, it does not cut off at a given distance from the Sun; rather it attempts to catalogue all known measured parallaxes. It gives the co-ordinates in 1900 epoch, the secular variation, the proper motion, the weighted average absolute parallax and its standard error, the number of parallax observations, quality of interagreement of the different values, the visual magnitude and various cross-identifications with other catalogues. Auxiliary information, including UBV photometry, MK spectral types, data on the variability and binary nature of the stars, orbits when available, and miscellaneous information to aid in determining the reliability of the data are also listed.- William F. van Altena, John Truen-liang Lee and Ellen Dorrit Hoffleit, Yale University Observatory, 1995.
HIP
The Hipparcos catalogue was compiled from the data gathered by the European Space AgencyEuropean Space Agency
The European Space Agency , established in 1975, is an intergovernmental organisation dedicated to the exploration of space, currently with 18 member states...
's astrometric satellite Hipparcos
Hipparcos
Hipparcos was a scientific mission of the European Space Agency , launched in 1989 and operated between 1989 and 1993. It was the first space experiment devoted to precision astrometry, the accurate measurement of the positions of celestial objects on the sky...
, which was operational from 1989 to 1993. The catalogue was published in June 1997 and contains 118,218 stars; an updated version with re-processed data was published in 2007. It is particularly notable for its parallax
Parallax
Parallax is a displacement or difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight, and is measured by the angle or semi-angle of inclination between those two lines. The term is derived from the Greek παράλλαξις , meaning "alteration"...
measurements, which are considerably more accurate than those produced by ground-based observations. See Stellar parallax
Stellar parallax
Stellar parallax is the effect of parallax on distant stars in astronomy. It is parallax on an interstellar scale, and it can be used to determine the distance of Earth to another star directly with accurate astrometry...
and List of stars in the Hipparcos Catalogue.
PPM
The PPM Star CataloguePPM Star Catalogue
The PPM Star Catalogue is the successor of the SAO Catalogue. It contains precise positions and proper motions of 378,910 stars on the whole sky in the J2000/FK5 coordinate system....
is one of best, both in the proper motion and star position till 1999. Not as precise as Hipparcos
Hipparcos
Hipparcos was a scientific mission of the European Space Agency , launched in 1989 and operated between 1989 and 1993. It was the first space experiment devoted to precision astrometry, the accurate measurement of the positions of celestial objects on the sky...
catalogue but with many more stars. The PPM was built from BD, SAO, HD and more, with sophisticated algorithm and is an extension for the Fifth Fundamental Catalogue, "Catalogues of Fundamental Stars".
Proper motion catalogues
A common way of detecting nearby stars is to look for relatively high proper motions. Several catalogues exist, of which we'll mention a few. The RossFrank Elmore Ross
Frank Elmore Ross was an American astronomer and physicist. He was born in San Francisco, California and died in Altadena, California. In 1901 he received his doctorate from the University of California. In 1905 he became director of the International Latitude Observatory station at Gaithersburg,...
and Wolf catalogues pioneered the domain:
- Ross, Frank ElmoreFrank Elmore RossFrank Elmore Ross was an American astronomer and physicist. He was born in San Francisco, California and died in Altadena, California. In 1901 he received his doctorate from the University of California. In 1905 he became director of the International Latitude Observatory station at Gaithersburg,...
, New Proper Motion Stars, eight successive lists, The Astronomical Journal, Vol. 36 to 48, 1925-1939
- Wolf, MaxMax WolfMaximilian Franz Joseph Cornelius Wolf was a German astronomer and a pioneer in the field of astrophotography...
, "Katalog von 1053 stärker bewegten Fixsternen", Veröff. d. Badischen Sternwarte zu Heidelberg (Königstuhl), Bd. 7, No. 10, 1919; and numerous lists in Astronomische NachrichtenAstronomische NachrichtenAstronomische Nachrichten , one of the first international journals in the field of astronomy, was founded in 1821 by the German astronomer Heinrich Christian Schumacher. It claims to be the oldest astronomical journal in the world that is still being published...
, 209 to 236, 1919-1929
Willem Jacob Luyten
Willem Jacob Luyten
Willem Jacob Luyten was a Dutch-American astronomer.-Life:Jacob Luyten was born in Semarang, Java, at the time part of the Dutch East Indies. His mother was Cornelia M. Francken and his father Jacob Luyten, a French teacher.At the age of 11 he observed Halley's comet, which started his...
later produced a series of catalogues:
L - Luyten, Proper motion stars and White dwarfs
- Luyten, W. J., Proper Motion Survey with the forty-eight inch Schmidt Telescope, University of Minnesota, 1941 (General Catalogue of the Bruce Proper-Motion Survey)
LFT - Luyten Five-Tenths catalogue
- Luyten, W. J., A Catalog of 1849 Stars with Proper Motion exceeding 0.5" annually, Lund Press, Minneapolis (Mn), 1955 (http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1955QB6.L8.........)
LHS - Luyten Half-Second catalogue
- Luyten, W. J., Catalogue of stars with proper motions exceeding 0"5 annually, University of Minnesota, 1979 (http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1979lccs.book.....L)
LTT - Luyten Two-Tenths catalogue
- Luyten, W. J. Luyten's Two Tenths. A catalogue of 9867 stars in the Southern Hemisphere with proper motions exceeding 0".2 annually, Minneapolis, 1957; also supplements 1961–1962. (http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1957LTT...C......0Lhttp://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1961POMin...3h...1Lhttp://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1961LTT...C......0Lhttp://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1962LTTS1.C......0L)
NLTT - New Luyten Two-Tenths catalogue
- Luyten, W. J., New Luyten Catalogue of stars with proper motions larger than two tenths of an arcsecond (NLTT), Univ. of Minnesota, 1979, supplement 1980 (http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1980nlca.book.....Lhttp://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/Cat?I/98A)
LPM - Luyten Proper-Motion catalogue
- Luyten, W. J., Proper Motion Survey with the 48 inch Schmidt Telescope, University of Minnesota, 1963-1981
Around the same time period, Henry Lee Giclas worked on a similar series of catalogs:
- Giclas, H. L., et al., Lowell Proper Motion Survey, Lowell Observatory Bulletin, 1971-1979 (http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1971lpms.book.....G)
uvby98
The ubvyβ Photoelectric Photometric Catalogue is a compilation of previously published photometric data. Published in 1998, the catalogue includes 63,316 stars surveyed through 1996.Successors to USNO-A, USNO-B, NOMAD, UCAC and Others
Stars evolve and move over time, making catalogs evolving, impermanent databases at even the most rigorous levels of production. The USNO catalogs are the most current and widely used astrometric catalogs available at present, and include USNO products such as USNO-B (the successor to USNO-A), NOMAD, UCAC and others in production or narrowly released. Some users may see specialized catalogs (more recent versions of the above), tailored catalogs, Interferometrically-produced cataloges, dynamic catalogs, and those with updated positions, motions, colors, and improved errors. Catalog data is continually collected at the Naval Observatory dark-sky facility, NOFSUnited States Naval Observatory Flagstaff Station
The United States Naval Observatory Flagstaff Station , is a scientific astronomical observatory operated as a Navy Echelon V command and the national dark-sky observing Facility/observatory subordinate to the United States Naval Observatory . USNO and NOFS are commands within the CNMOC claimancy,...
; and the latest refined, updated catalogs are reduced and produced by NOFS and the USNO
United States Naval Observatory
The United States Naval Observatory is one of the oldest scientific agencies in the United States, with a primary mission to produce Positioning, Navigation, and Timing for the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Department of Defense...
. See the USNO
United States Naval Observatory
The United States Naval Observatory is one of the oldest scientific agencies in the United States, with a primary mission to produce Positioning, Navigation, and Timing for the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Department of Defense...
Catalog and Image Servers for more information and access.
See also
- Current Public, High-Metric Accuracy Star Catalogues produced by USNO
- Gaia mission
- List of Star catalogues
- Messier objectMessier objectThe Messier objects are a set of astronomical objects first listed by French astronomer Charles Messier in 1771. The original motivation of the catalogue was that Messier was a comet hunter, and was frustrated by objects which resembled but were not comets...