catalogs - Astronomical catalog formats
Standard ASCII and binary formats for astronomical catalogs which are to
be plotted (or used as centers) by skymap,
or searched (or used as search centers) by
star or
rgsc.
ASCII Catalogs
A simple ASCII catalog format was designed for ease of entry.
Catalogs in this format can be plotted or used to designate map or search
centers. Due to the existence of many formats for positional data, the simple
structure has evolved over time, keeping its essential simplicy, but
allowing more variation in the content and format of the position entries.
ASCII Catalog Examples
Binary Catalogs
Binary catalogs, which can be created from the aforementioned ASCII catalogs
using starcat, are used to save space and
make searches faster by presenting
software with data in its internal representation. ASCII catalogs may be
transferred between various computer architectures, but binary catalogs
are architecture-dependent.
Catalogs available in this binary format include the
SAO Catalog, the
PPM Catalog, and the
IRAS Point Source Catalog.
Last updated June 12, 1995 by Doug Mink,
dmink@cfa.harvard.edu
