Re: Wiki and SIMBAD

[Patrick Wils <patrickwils@yahoo.com>]

Michael R. wrote :

> >   Well, I would, too.  But consider this situation: you have found
> > something peculiar about a star, based on sifting through a
> database
> > or set of data files.  All you know right now is its position.
> > What do you do?
> >
> >     - go to SIMBAD and look up stars near the coordinates?
> >           If so, which of the 13 names do you pick?  HD?  GSC? 
> SAO?
> >
> >     - use the position to identify the star

Michael K. answered:

> I personally like the former. 
> Since we are generally talking about fairly bright stars I'd go with
> my 
> previous recommendation of GCVS->HD->GSC. That should get them all
> and will make it easy to query them in SIMBAD.
> 
> It doesn't solve the problem you mention, which is to figure out a 
> designation based on TASS coordinates, but SIMBAD and the like make 
> that pretty easy. I crank the search radius down to an arcminute or 
> two, limit the results to 5 per database, and just search the whole 
> damn world in VizieR.

I personally also prefer the GCVS->HD->GSC notation.  If one has access
to Guide 8 (or earlier versions), one doesn't have to search Simbad or
VizieR (Remember that Simbad does _not_ contain all GSC stars, but
VizieR does!).  The position of a star is not a good designation in an
ungoing project, as it may still change as more observations are
averaged.
There will still be a number of objects not in the GSC, most of them
probably non-stellar (Neptune, asteroids, galaxies, ...).  It will
maybe take some more time to label those.

Patrick


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