Stellar Mapping

[acrosome]

Originally Posted by Agemegos

If you are adding objects manually, start with the Extended Hipparcos dataset XHIP.



There is a sidebar on the left with an "preferences" box in it that ought to let you do useful things like set the number of results returned, sort the returns, specify format etc. You can also get it to calculate some values for you, but sadly not spectral type.



Special-purpose astronomical catalogues can be startlingly single-minded. That's what makes XHIP so lovely.

Wow. You rock.

I had to muck with my browser's settings to see that left-hand column stuff. It is exactly what I was missing for at least one of my problems.

Originally Posted by Agemegos

To amplify on a previous answer, I recommend that you start with the Extended Hipparcos compilation. Published in 2012, it consists of quality controlled position data from Hipparcos that has been carefully compiled with basically all the other data available in other catalogues.

XHIP has spectral classes and luminosities associated with Hipparcos position data. Also distance pre-calculated. Cartesian co-ordinates pre-calculated. Stellar ages where known. Metallicity where known. Star names. What constellation the star is in.

It also has a huge trove of stuff that you aren't interested in right now. Proper motions. Radial velocities. Space velocities in Cartesian co-ordinates. Elements of the star's orbit around the centre of the Galaxy. Number of known exoplanets. Type and range of variability.

I don't know why you might be having trouble, but if I navigate to http://vizier.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/V...e=+V/137B/XHIP I can go to the "Preferences" pane in the column on the left, click on the drop-down menu next to "max:" where it says "50" and select "unlimited". Then in the drop-down menu where it says "HTML table" I click and select "tab-separated variables" or whatever. And under "Position in:" I click the radio button for "decimal". Then I go to the main body of the text and check the data I want included in my report in the square check-boxes. Distance is "Dist" in the second group of data. I click the round "sort" radio button to get the output sorted in distance from Sol. And in the "constraint" column next to "Dist" I put "0..13.3" to get only results within 13.3 pc (43.36 LY). Then click any of the "submit" buttons and the results are downloaded to my Downloads folder as a tab-separated-variables file called "asu.tsv".

It works for me, but the results are too much to include in a post here. I put a results file on DropBox in case that is useful.

I think you are going to have to add new discoveries since 2012 by hand to something — easier than adding luminosity and spectral type to any existing positional catalogue. And given that, I think an extract from XHIP is the best catalogue to add to.

I reiterate- you rock. I'll digest this for a bit. I had searched for every variant of "Hipparcos" I could think of, but XHIP never came up... and it's a flipping AWESOME dataset.

I assume that it includes all the RECONS 100 closest stars, but I'll check them, and add all of those CTIOPI dwarfs and whatnot. I want to include all of those dwarfs because I want to set routes as short as I reasonably can in Astrosynthesis to get interesting-looking maps with strategic systems and dead-ends and such.

Thanks tons.

Hipparcos numbers lack poetry, though. Is there an easy way to find other names for stars? Zeta Tucanae, Proxima Centauri, etc.? I found a list of the 227 official IAU names indexed by hipparcos number, but I'd like the others, too.