Custom catalogs for planetarium program?

[Stonius]

Hi there,

I wonder if there are any planetarium programs out there that allow you to upload your own custom observing databases?

I'd really like to be able to create a list of the objects I want to observe, upload them to the planisphere program and have it display only the objects I've put on my 'observe list'.

I use Stellarium at the moment, but as far as I can see you can only upload custom solar system objects, not anything else. Yes I know Stellarium is open source, but I don't have programming skills on that quite level.

Cheers & thanks

Maruks

[Stonius]

Hmmm Looking at Cartes Du Ciel , looks like it does have some 'Observing list' functionality. Still getting my head around the controls but could be time to switch.

[Merlin66]

+1 for CdC

If you want to get serious about an observing log interfaced with CdC have a look at Paul's AstroPlanner.
It has hundreds of catalogues!
Highly recommended.
http://www.astroplanner.net/

[AndrewJ]

Another + for CdC
I use the catalogue generator to make databases of the Meade Align stars etc for each of the models
Just put it into zenith view when setting up and you can easily see good align star pairs.

Andrew

[sutekh]

Markus,

Stellarium does not support custom catalogues, but Cartes du Ciel
does.

A good summary of the large major DSO catalogues (and links to
them) can be found on the Distro Astro site:

http://www.distroastro.org/catalogs/

The zip format is tar.gz and the line returns are also Linux-style,
so a non-Linux OS will need something like 7-Zip and gEdit to read
the catalogues.

Note that all of these catalogues are already included in Cartes
du Ciel in Distro Astro 3, so to display prominent objects you
could just download the live DVD and adjust the magnitude settings.
(Even dark nebulae have been assigned "magnitudes" ending in .99
so that the Cartes du Ciel can display only prominent objects, if
you wish.) For additional stars, you can add the Tycho-2 (to mag 11)
or the UCAC4 (to mag 16).

-- sutekh

[Merlin66]

Has anyone found a searchable WR star catalogue for CdC?
The downloadable Olag's version doesn't include a search index.

[sutekh]

merlin66,

The original WR catalogue (which can be found at the following link)

http://vizier.cfa.harvard.edu/viz-bin/Cat?III/215#sRM-F.54

uses multiple cross-references. For instance, #31b in the original
WR catalogue is AG Car in Table 15, but also = HD 94910 in Table 13.
In fact, Table 13 gives star name, variable star name, or planetary
designation -- all in different columns.

So if you want a search index, you would have to merge Table 13 and
Table 15, collect the search index names that you want into a single
column, then build with CatGen.

In fact, any custom catalogue that you build for Cartes du Ciel may
first require some editing (using a program to fill in blank entries
with a dummy value, for example).

-- sutekh

[Merlin66]

sutekh,
I already have the WR catalogue in CdC format....
Is there any way you know of to just generate the necessary index files without having to re-enter all the data into CATGEN???

[sutekh]

merlin66,

In the CdC-compatible version of the WR catalogue at

http://www.ap-i.net/skychart/uk/catalogues

the .idx file in the folder is a search index -- sort of.
For instance, AG Car is #31b in the catalogue, so typing
"31b" in CdC's Search window brings you to the star.

Unfortunately, without the .txt file, the compiled catalogue
can't be edited. So I've built a searchable version and have
attached it here. You can search by any of the names in the
catalogue and it brings you to the correct star. This star is
usually in the XHIP catalogue, so unfortunately the Information
window gives the XHIP data. To get the WR catalog data, you
have to temporarily switch the XHIP catalogue off. I think
that's a flaw with CdC generally whenever two or more catalogue
objects share the same position.

Since the attached catalogue is compiled, it should work on any platform.
Let us know how it goes.

-- sutekh

[Merlin66]

Sutehk,
Thanks very, very, much, that works for me!!!
(It even seems to work well enough with the xhip selected.)
Thanks for the assistance, appreciated.

[sutekh]

Glad to help, merlin66.

The folder also contains the .txt file and .prj file so you can modify the catalogue in any way you wish.

Any catalogue (from the Distro Astro link in Post #5, or others such as the WDS, GCVS, etc.) can be modified
and added to CdC in the same way. Custom catalogues are the most powerful feature of CdC. Distro Astro 3
has its huge collection of custom DSO catalogues only in CdC because DA3's other planetarium programs
(Stellarium, KStars) don't support custom catalogues.

The OP's opening title of this thread is somewhat misleading, though. Even the ESO/Uppsala Survey (1982),
Vol. 3 of the Atlas of Galactic Nebulae (1990), and the dark nebula catalogue by Hartley et al. (1986) are not
strictly for southern observers.

-- sutekh