sábado, 27 de junio de 2015

My Field Catalogue of Celestial Objects, an immense task of almost 10 years...!!!

This Catalogue is fruit of my passion for both Astronomy and the scientific research. The achievement of my life's last 11 years, it was a demanding task, both in patience and perseverance. I think nothing of the like exists today that I know of, being so rich in information for each object, and for so many (more than 10800) celestial wonders. The Catalogue includes, besides thousands of other miscelaneous objects, the following material:

-1540+ open clusters  (oc), including 139 extragalactic clusters (EGO).
-930+ asterisms (A) or star patterns, many of which could be true open clusters themselves.
-1270+ galaxies, groups of galaxies and galaxy clusters  (gx,  gxg,  gxc).
-240 globular clusters (gc).
-205 dark or absorption nebulae (dn), including also Bok and Thackeray globules.
-190 irregular gaseous nebulae (gn), including emission (gnE) and reflection (gnR) nebulae.
-225 planetary nebulae (pn).
-3500+ binary stars (2), triple (3) or multiple stars (mss), taken from a huge number of catalogs.
-2000+ variable stars (vs), including 690+ true carbon stars (cs), 180+ eclipsing variables (evs), and a huge amount of other types as cepheids (cep), Miras, Wolf-Rayet stars (WR), the magnificent luminous blue variables (LBV), and the peculiar types (pec), among many others.
-60+  nearby stars included in the SunLikeStar, Habstar, SETI and TFR programs searching for habitable stellar systems.
- 51+  stellar systems harboring confirmed planets (EPS).
-410+  red stars, including many variables and carbon stars unlisted among the 2000+ variable stars mentioned above.
-22  supernovae remnants  (snr) brighter than magnitude 15.
-7  quasars (qsr) brighter than visual (apparent) magnitude 15.5
-7  planets (pl) of the solar system, and also including dwarf planets like Pluto and Ceres.
-40  moons of the solar system, including of course the Earth's moon.
-105  asteroids from the asteroid belt (within Jupiter’s orbit).
-37 meteor showers and 3 periodic comets that originate some of them.

About a decade ago I purchased my first GOTO telescope, a Meade ETX 125, whose marvelous Autostar 497 built-in database included more than 30000 celestial objects, allowing the manual addition of other 1000 objects. Only 16 characters of information could be entered, besides the celestial coordinates, magnitude and constellation name. Despite the large number of objects listed, this was indeed a paltry amount of information per object.
Moreover, there were in that database many objects impossible to see from home, due to the poor urban sky or its  southernly latitude. And absent from that list were many objects I was really interested in observing. Thus I began to make an additional listing that, by the moment I sold that telescope, already included about  900 objects, albeit poorly descripted for the already mentioned Autostar’s limitations. 
That was not enough information for observers who, like myself, want to know the most of the object at the eyepiece, even with the logical uncertainties inherent to astronomical research. That’s why  along these 10 years I created a massive catalogue  as none in the world that I may know of.  Printable in ~330  landscape A4-sized pages, I described as profusely and completely as posible  ~10300 celestial objects, including the updated celestial coordinates,  the constellation the object lies in, the type of object, the apparent and absolute magnitudes, the range of magnitudes in a cluster or variable star, and a huge amount of other parameters as listed below. The sources had been innumerable, and only a tiny amount of them are listed below, as it would have been impossible to enlist them all. Most of the unmentioned sources were just leaps between different pages and links, while seeking information for a particular object.
Sometimes, as with the distance, the spectral type or the diameter of galaxies or clusters, I found important discrepancies among the sources. In those cases, I mentioned such discrepancies giving a range, or stating, for instance, “oss 245 Ly” (other source/s state/s  245 light years).
Further information included in the catalogue were, for the stars,  the SAO /HD /HIP numbers, the spectral type, B-V index of color, visual and bolometric luminosity, absolute visual and bolometric luminosities, surface temperature, age, radial velocity (stated as approaching or receding from us), distance, etc.  If it is a double or multiple system, besides the mentioned information, I added also details of the companion star/s, as angular separation in arcseconds, orbital distance in AU, position angle, orbital period, eccentricity, orbital inclination, name of the discoverer and date,  description of the FOV around the object, etc. In the case of variable stars, I have added the variable type, range and known period/s of variation, its discoverer and any other important information. Unfortunately, not all these data had been found for every object listed, mostly for being unknown at present.
Regarding clusters, galaxies and nebulae, further information adds name of the discoverer and date, apparent and real size, class, magnitude and relative position of the brightest star, surface brightness, visual inclination (radial angle), if the galaxy is edge-on or face-on, if it lies solitary in the void or belongs to a group or cluster either truly or optically, FOV description, equipment and conditions needed to observe this object, etc.
At the bottom can be seen screenshots showing its layout.
The catalogue has been written with the aim of selecting objects from it to observe, and eventually printing this list of chosen objects in an A4 (landscape) page. I have shortened the margins to the outmost, so every line accepted a maximum of 205 characters. This is one of two reasons of the catalogue being written in English, as this language requires about 20% less characters than Spanish to convey the same amount of information. The other is that the ETX 125 database was already written in English. Most of the times, being in this language was not enough, so I had to resource to abbreviations to allow even more information to be included.  These are 114, and very easy to use, as they are mostly of standard use (like gc for globular cluster, or gx for galaxy). Only two pairs are more difficult to use, as they have a different meaning if they are capitalized or not:  cs (carbon star) and  CS (central star of a planetary nebula).  sb (surface brightness)  and  SB (spectroscopic binary). 
About 5% of the objects (~500) have purposedly a double entry. This is because there is such a wealth of interesting data available for these objects  that a single line could not gather it all, and much information would have been left out. These objects have a (R) or (REP) mark after its name.  Similarly, the solar planets and its main moons are the only celestial objects having 3 lines of information each one, for this same reason.  Each line is marked 1/3, 2/3 and 3/3.
In the case of the asteroids, all 105 included are visible under dark skies with telescopes endowed with apertures of 8 inches (or less).

The Catalogue includes very accurate and updated (mostly to 2013-2015) celestial coordinates. This unique feature makes it wonderful for GOTO-telescope users. Non-GOTO users can also profit from the unprecedentedly huge amount of information it provides. The updated coordinates were taken from the SkySafary v4 Pro astronomical software, because all other sources had the Epoch 2000 coordinates. Both RA /Dec coordinates are expressed as numbers. Thus, Right Ascention 24h 16m 15s is entered simply as 241615, while Declination 64d 33m 18s South  is -643318.
As the Catalogue has been written in Microsoft Access 2007, it can be easily reordered according to the column desired. Thus,  it can be ordered alphabetically, or according to the constellation, or the type of object, or the right ascencion, or to declination. The (range of) magnitude column is more difficult to reorder, as the program does not choose from negative or positive magnitude. Besides, in the case the magnitude information was not available, I have entered in this column information such as apparent size or minimum equipment needed, when extra room was needed in the last column to include more interesting observational data about the object.
Magnitude is espressed generally without commas, and with only one decimal number. Thus, m106 is magnitude 10.6, and m26 is magnitude 2.6.   Nevertheless, the fabulous quasar 3C273 has an absolute magnitude of -26.8 (here the comma is needed), and the variable star GS Muscae varies iths brightness from m734 to m755, that is, from magnitude 7.34 to magnitude 7.55 (here 2 decimals are used, for the need of a greater precision).
The first column, preceding the name of the object, is used to index and select objects. Afterwards, this column can also be ordered upside down (zz on top), in order to select what will be observed in the night. All that will not be observed, can this be erased if we want to print the page, In this case, this first indexer column should be deleted, as if not, the page would not fit into a A4 size. For those people that have not the original program (Microsoft Access, from the suite Office), I leave it transcripted into Excel 2007, but in this case the possibility of reordering columns is lost, and only one parameter (name, constellation, object type, AR or Dec) can be chosen to order the database.
Due to lack of time, I could not include objects that are not visible in the whereabouts of Buenos Aires, located at latitude 34*, ruling out all objects further North than declination 56*N, excepting a very few fascinating objects like the Owl nebula (M97) or the Double Cluster, though both objects cannot be seen from Buenos Aires. Logically, the further North it is from declination 40*, the fewer the objects and the information included.
Its layout includes 8 main columns (plus 4 others I use for personal observing, named X, A, Z and SEEN?)  X, A and Z are used to select objects to observe during a particular night, and SEEN? is used to avoid spending time observing something previously seen, unless deserving a new visit.  

1) The index column, useful to select items to observe. It has to be cut out if the page is to be printed, after the needed selection has been made, otherwise the page will not easily fit in an A4 page.
2) The object's name column.
3) The constellation column.
4) The object's type (and class) column. 
5) The RA (right ascention) column, expressed, as explained, without units and spaces.
6) The DEC (declination) column, also expressed, as explained, without units and spaces.
7) The m/range  (magnitude or magnitude range) column. In many times, this column lacks the magnitude information (because it was found nowhere), and in order to free space from the last column (therefore allowing more information to be included in it) I have transferred here some data that was previously elsewhere. In the case of deep sky objects, also the surface brightness, when found, was included in this column.
8) The further information column. This is the very core of the catalogue, because it has a unique wealth of information. Many hundred additional objects are either simply mentioned or partially descripted in this column (if this mentioned or partially descripted object has an entry on its own, it says "see" along with its name). No other listing has such an enormous amount of data, and for that huge number of celestial objects as this, as far as I know
Immediately below is the Dropbox link to the Field Catalogue,

 (updated and expanded to May 25th, 2017)

At the bottom there is a photograph showing the list of abbreviations used in the Listing.

SOURCES:  BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCE

-Observing the constellations. (John Sanford)
-Handbook of the Constellations. (J.Vehrenberg & D. Blank)
-The hundred greatest stars. (James Kaler)
-Extreme stars. (James Kaler)
-Deep sky observer’s handbook (Webb Society):
        -Vol.1  Double stars.
        -Vol.2  Planetary and gaseous nebulae.
        -Vol.4  Galaxies.
        -Vol.5  Galaxy clusters.
-Star clusters and how to observe them.  (Mark Allison)
-Double and multiple stars.  (James Mullaney)
-Double stars for small telescopes.  (Sissy Haas)
-The Cambridge Double Star’s Atlas.  (J. Mullaney & Will Tirion)
-The photographic atlas of the sky.  (A.Doherty & P. Moore)
-A revised catalogue of the Espin-Birmingham red stars.  (anonymous)
-Astronomy of the Milky Way.  (Mike Inglis)
-Celestial Harvest.  (James Mullaney)
-Deep Sky Companions  (Steve O’Meara):
        -The Messier objects.
        -Hidden Treasures.
-Burnham Celestial Handbook.  (R. Burnham)
-Many issues of the following astronomicaal magazines:
       -Sky and Telescope.
       -Australian Sky and Telescope.
       -Scientific American.
       -Astronomy Magazine.
       -Revista Astronomica.  (Asociacion Argentina  Amigos de la Astronomia)
       -Si Muove.  (published quaterly by the Planetarium of Buenos Aires)
       -El observador de estrellas dobles (www.elobservadordestrellasdobles.wordpress.com)
-Deep sky observing with small telescopes.  (D.J. Eicher et al.)
-Exotico Cielo Profundo.  (Rodolfo Ferraiuolo  & Enzo de Bernardini)
-Estrellas variables.  (Jaime R. Garcia)
-The Herschel 400 observing guide.  (Stephen O’Meara)
-Que ha sido de Pluton?.  (P. Sutherland)
-Asteroid Rendezvous.  (J. Bell & J. Mitton)
-The universe and beyond.  (Terence Dickinson)
-Stars and planets.  (J.M. Pasachoff)
-The Deep-Sky Hunter’s Field Guide  (François Riguet):
     -Part 1  planetary nebulae.
     -Part 2  galactic nebulae.
     -Part 3  galaxies
     -Part 4  open star clusters
     -Part 5  asterisms
-Touring the Trumpler classes (Richard Harshaw)
-The Messier album.  (J. Mallas  & E. Kreimer)
-Estrellas y atomos.  (S. Clark)
-The Milky Way.  (Bart & Priscilla Bok)
-Atomos, estrellas y nebulosas.  (L. Goldberg)
-Colours of the stars.  (D. Malin & P.Murdin)
-List of celestial objects (for the ETX 125 telescopes).  (Mark Kudlowski)
-Clear Skies Observing Guides (CSOG).  (Viktor van Wulffen)
-Catalogo de Estrellas Dobles Visuales edicion 2013.  (Jose Luis Comellas).
-Toshimi Taki’s double star atlas.  (T. Taki)
Many purchased, printed and downloaded PDFs and scientific papers from the internet, like the following:

-Celestron's Nexstar 8&11 GPS Double Star List.
-Pattern Asterisms, by John A. Chiravalle.
-Asterisms, small star-patterns for telescopes and binoculars, by Demelza Ramakers.
-WDS Astrometry, Orbit and DM Catalogs: References.
-Catalogue of stars embedded in nebulosity. Sidney van den Bergh & W.Herbst (1974).
-Hipparcos red stars in the HpVt2 and VIc systems. L Platais et al. (2003).
-Astrophysical parameters of ten poorly studied open star clusters. A. Tadross et al.  (2012)
 (Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics).
-Astronomical League Southern Sky Telescopic Program.
-"Deepsky Beauties" oredered by month. (source of these pdf document nor reatained. Can be googled).
- "Nightfall", newsletter of the ASSA Deep sky system (April 2015 and many other issues downloadable  for free). This is  from the  Astronomical Society of South Africa.
-Dunlop Catalogue of Southern Skies. Centaurus. (seek Dunlop.pdf)
-"The Deep sky observer", quaterly journal of the Webb Societey.
-Near-IR view of massive binaries in young massive clusters. (A.Bonanos et al.)
-Que se puede observer cuando se esta observando?  (Ignacio Rabadan España)
-Selection of globular clusters brighter tan magnitude 135.  (compiler Carlos Segarra)
-São Paulo Catalogue of galactic open clusters. (W.Dias,  J.Lepine,  B.Alessi and  A.Moitinho)
-James Dunlop’s historical catalogue of Southern nebulae & clusters. (G. Cozens et al.)
-Diameters of open star clusters.  (Sydney van den Bergh, 2006). Astronomy Journal nr 131 .1559V
-Deep sky observers’ challenge list.  (Southern Star Party’s team)
-Astrophysical parameters of 10 poorly studied open clusters.  (A. Tadross et al.)
-Hipparcos red stars in the HpVT2 and V1c systems.  (I. Platais et al.)
-The Collinder catalogue of open star clusters.  (T. Watson).
-Open clusters list according to their distance to the sun.  (anonymous)
-Selected Southern doubles and variables. (presented by A. James)
-Globular clusters. (A. Huey)  www.faintfuzzies.com
-A modified Messier marathon for Southern observers.  (Leo Cavagnaro)
-Starland/ Olcott’s binary star list.  (anonymous)
- Distance to some AGB stars.   (Menzies et al., 2006)                   
           http://www1.ynao.ac.cn/~jinhuahe/know_base/catalogues/sourcelists/agb_distances.htm
-T. Espin’s caralogue of red stars.  (http://old.observers.org/observing/espin.html )
-List of rare asterisms.   http://www.astronomie-schoenebeck.de/fotos
-On NGC N4755 and its component stars..  http://www.southastrodel.com/Page001.htm  inform. 
         (2008)_370374/links/0912f505b54de8926f000000.pdf. file:///C:/Users/Usuario/Downloads/NA%2013-   
         5%20(2008)%20370-374.pdf  miscelaneous data about some open star clusters.
- The intermediate-age open clusters Ruprecht 61, Czernik 32, NGC 2225 and NGC 2262. (G. Carraro  et al)
- Planetary Satellite Physical Parameters (http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/?sat_phys_par)
 TPF C's Top Target Stars Space Telescope Science Institute
http://cdsads.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?2010AstL...36..220B&db_key=AST&nosetcookie=1
Target Selection for SETI. II. Tycho-2 Dwarfs, Old Open Clusters, and the Nearest 100 Stars. Turnbull, M.C.; Tarter, Jill C.
-Photometric study of four open cluster candidates (Ivanov 2, Ivanov 7, Ivanov 9 and Harvard 9 (http://arxiv.org/abs/1403.3014)
G. F. Porto de Mello, E. F. del Peloso, L. Ghezzi (2006). «Astrobiologically interesting stars within 10 parsecs of the Sun». Astrobiology 6 (2):  pp. 308–331.doi:10.1089/ast.2006.6.308.
-Bruno Alessi’s   Catalog of obscure s clusters    (http://www.visualdeepsky.org/chat/msg01251.html)
-Catalogo Alessi of cluster-like objects (http://www.astro.iag.usp.br/ocdb/file/BDCCT_Catalog_Alessi.txt)

-Laurent Ferrero’s catalogue of personal asterisms.    (http://splendeursducielprofond.eklablog.fr/mon-catalogue-d-amas-d-etoiles-p563496#catalogueferrero)
-The Herschel 500 Double Star List (http://www.handprint.com/ASTRO/Herschel500.html
-Information on planetary moons:
Uranus’ moons (http://home.dtm.ciw.edu/users/sheppard/satellites/urasatdata.html) 
Neptune’s moons (http://home.dtm.ciw.edu/users/sheppard/satellites/nepsatdata.html)
Saturn’s moons (http://home.dtm.ciw.edu/users/sheppard/satellites/satsatdata.html)
Jovian moons (http://home.dtm.ciw.edu/users/sheppard/satellites/jupsatdata.html)
Mars’ moons (http://www.observing.skyhound.com/shallow_sky/mars_moons.html)
-very interesting webpage on planetaria in general.  (http://home.dtm.ciw.edu/users/sheppard/)
-Diverse material on carbón stars:
-Spectral Atlas of Carbon Stars (Barnbaum+ 1996)
http://www.astroleague.org/content/carbon-star-observing-club
http://www.nckas.org/carbonstars/
http://www.eaglecreekobservatory.org/eco/carbon.html
http://www.eaglecreekobservatory.org/eco/doubles/colors.html
http://www.aho.ch/pilotplanets/files/carbonred1.htm
http://www.thestarhopper.com/Documents/ALCarbonStarChartslarge.pdf
http://www.saguaroastro.org/content/downloads.htm
https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~pberlind/atlas/htmls/carboncat.html
http://calgary.rasc.ca/redstars.htm
-RASC Calgary Centre - The Reddest Stars in the Sky
http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/nph-Cat/html?III%2F156
III/156 Cool Galactic Carbon Stars, 2nd Edition (Stephenson 1989)
http://paperity.org/p/39441879/carbon-rich-mira-variables-radial-velocities-and-distances
Carbon-rich Mira variables: radial velocities and distances J.W.Menzies, M.W. Feast  and Patricia A.Whitelock
-Alternative names for binary stars in the Aitken Double Stars (ADS) catalogue.  (anonymous)
https://www-n.oca.eu/cgi-bin/aristidi/dbltab
http://www.astrosurf.com/bsalque/rouges.htm  Red stars extracted from Kharchenko etal. 2.5Million stars catalogue by French observer Bruno Salque.
http://web.missouri.edu/~speckan/witch-stuff/Research/chapter6/chapter6.html
http://iopscience.iop.org/1538-3881/143/2/36/article
-Catalog of parameters for Milky Way globular clusters.    http://www.physics.mcmaster.ca/~harris/mwgc.dat  
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1977ApJ...215..106M
-Information on asteroids (http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/asteroidfact.html  Asteroid Fact Sheet)
-A catalogue of bright nebulosities in opaque dust clouds. (C. Bernes)
AA (Stockholms Observatorium, Saltsjobaden, Sweden).
Astron. Astrophy. Suppl. Series, vol. 29, July 1977, p. 65-70. 07/1977.
Backyard Observers Handbook: Globular Clusters of the Milky Way Galaxy (Draft Copy)
http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~arecasc/pdf/Observers%20Handbook%20Globular%20Clusters%20Master.pdf
-Catalogue of dark nebulae and globules for galactic longitudes 240 to 360 degrees.  (J. V. Feitzinger & J. A. Stüwe).
Astronomisches Institut der Ruhr-Universität Bochum. Germany.
Astron. Astrophy. Suppl. Ser. 58, 365-386 (1984).
-Interstellar Formaldehyde in Southern Dark Dust Clouds. (A. Sandqvist & K. P. Lindroos)  Stockholm Obs., Sweden.
-WDS Astrometry, Orbit & DM Catalogs: Reference.  Very useful page to find discoverers and date information of many binary stars, according to the discoverer’s acronyms.
Astron. Astrophy., 53, 179-189 (1976).
-The nature of some doubtful open clusters as revealed by Hipparcos.   (H. Baumgardt, 1998)
-Very useful locator of a constellation an object resides in when only having its celestial coordinates  (https://www.fourmilab.ch/cgi-bin/Yourtel)
http://www.eaglecreekobservatory.org/eco/doubles/car.html . Fabulously useful webpage to locate and find information on binaries according to the constellation they lie in.
-Anne’s Astronomy network.   APOD-like webpage about deep sky objects.
http://messier45.com/#s/dsh*  Finder of information on asterisms.
-The top 50 most remarkable red stars. http://users.skynet.be/fc219947/redstars/redstars.html
-Listado global de distancias a cumulos abiertos  http://www.astro.uni.wroc.pl/ludzie/kopacki/ga/data-spiral.txt
-Catalogue of red stars (2004) –Abdul Ahad
-http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=NGC+4203  Esta pagina usada muy frecuentemente para el calculo de velocidades radiales (y distancias).
-http://www.sky-spot.com/double.html   algunas cartas de busqueda de pares selectos 
-http://stars.astro.illinois.edu/sow/sowlist.html  base de datos a objetos extragalacticos, muy consultada

-Concordiem Borealis (Stephen Saber) and Concordiem Australis (Matthew Wedel), from the Popular Astronomy Club (USA).
Web sites extensively used while preparing this Catalogue were the following:
-DeepSky Observer’s Companion database. (www.DocDB.net), a fantastic South African database, plenty of historical information about deep sky objects.
-www.seilgman.com.   Professor astronomer Courtney Seligman’s webpage.
-James Kaler’s own page about the stars. (stars.astro.illinois.edu/sow/sowlist.html)
-Selected Southern jewels’ database.  (www.douthastrodel.com)
-www.astroleague.com.   very useful webpage plenty of observational reports
-www.cloudynights.com   another very useful webpage plenty of observational reports
-astronomy/eaglecreekobservatory.org    extraordinary page for amateur observers.
- http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad   to get information on stars.
- http://www.alcyone.de/SIT  to get information on stars.
-Asterisms, small star patterns for telescopes and binoculars. Demelza Ramakers (2011)
-Pattern asterisms. John A. Chiravalle (circa 2005)
-http://www.saguaroastro.org   The Saguaro Astronomical Club excellent site.
-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki  for general, miscelaneous information.
- http://www.univie.ac.at/webda  for information on distance and age of deep sky objects.
- http://www.aavso.org/vsx/index.php  for information on variable stars
- vsnet.kusastro.kyoto-u.ac.jp/vsnet   for information on variable stars
. http://deepskypedia.com/wiki   for general, miscelaneous information.
-hundreds of observational reports by observers like Steve Coe, Richard Ford, Iiro Sairanen, Auke Slotegraaf, Jeff Burton, Jaako Saloranta, Laurent Ferrero, Paul Kemp, Phil Harrington, Carol Botha, Magda Streicher, Tom Polakis, Brian Skiff, etc.
-Innumerable (many hundreds) other webpages, mainly visited only once or twice, for a particular piece of information.
For updated celestial coordinates (between 2013-2015) and other information I used the SkySafari v4 Pro software, installed on my Samsung Galaxy Note 3 cellphone.
This work consumed about 5,000 hours of my life in its making.