[WCSTools]

Catalog Environment Variables

[Catalogs]
The various WCSTools catalog utility tasks and catalog access subroutines can read many publicly available catalogs of astronomical sources. Here are the environment variables which can be used to set alternate paths to those catalogs different from those compiled into the sofware.

HST Guide Star Catalog GSC-ACT Star Catalog Tycho 2 Catalog USNO-ACT
USNO-A2.0 USNO-B1.0 USNO-SA1.0 USNO-SA2.0
GSC II Catalog 2MASS Point Source Catalog SAO PPM
IRAS Point Source TDC ASCII TDC tab-separated table TDC binary.

USNO-A2.0 Catalog

sua2, imua2

UA2_PATH sets the path to a single root directory where all of the catalog files reside. This overrides the ua2path variable near the start of the file libwcs/uacread.c, which defaults to "/data/ua2".

UA2_ROOT sets the path to the directory where the 11 CDROMs (or any subset of them) are mounted. It replaces the cdroot variable near the start of the file libwcs/uacread.c, which defaults to "/cdrom". This is only used if there is no path set to a single root directory.

USNO-B1.0 Catalog

sub1, imub1

UB1_PATH sets the path to a single root directory where all of the zone subdirectories containing the catalog files reside. This overrides the ub1path variable near the start of the file libwcs/ubcread.c, which defaults to "/data/ub1".

GSC II Catalog

sgsc2, imgsc2

There is currently no way to override the setting in gsc2read.c which points to the server at the Space Telescope Science Institute.

HST Guide Star Catalog

sgsc, imgsc

GSC_NORTH points to the root directory of the northern part of the GSC (volume 1), overriding the variable cdn in the file libwcs/gscread.c.

GSC_SOUTH points to the root directory of the southern part of the GSC (volume 2), overriding the variable cds in the file libwcs/gscread.c.

GSC-ACT Star Catalog

sgsca, imgsca

GSCACT_NORTH points to the root directory of the northern part of the GSC-ACT (volume 1), overriding the variable cdna in the file libwcs/gscread.c".

GSCACT_SOUTH points to the root directory of the southern part of the GSC-ACT (volume 2), overriding the variable cdsa in the file libwcs/gscread.c".

2MASS Point Source Catalog

stmc, imtmc

TMC_PATH sets the path to the directory containing all of the catalog files, overriding the variable tmccd in the file libwcs/tmcread.c which defaults to "/data/astrocat/2MASS".

USNO-SA2.0 Catalog

susa2, imusa2

USA2_PATH points to the root directory on the CDROM or the directory on the hard disk to which the catalog has been copied, replacing usa2_path in libwcs/uacread.c/, which defaults to "/data/usnosa20".

Tycho-2 Reference Catalog

sty2, imty2

TY2_PATH is the path to the root directory on the CDROM or to the hard disk directory to which it has been copied, overriding the variable cdpath in the file libwcs/ty2read.c which defaults to "/data/astrocat/tycho2".

ACT Reference Catalog

sact, imact

ACT_PATH points to the root directory on the CDROM or to the hard disk directory to which it has been copied, overriding the variable cdpath in the file libwcs/actread.c

PPM Catalog

sppm, imppm

PPM_PATH or WCS_BINDIR is the path to the directory where the catalog files PPMra and/or PPM are sorted in TDC binary format. It overrides the bindir variable near the start of the file libwcs/binread.c which defaults to /data/catalogs.

SAO Catalog

ssao, imsao

SAO_PATH or WCS_BINDIR is the path to the directory where the catalog files SAOra and SAO are stored. It overrides the bindir variable near the start of the file libwcs/binread.c which defaults to /data/catalogs.

IRAS Point Source Catalog

siras, imiras

IRAS_PATH or WCS_BINDIR is the path to the directory where the catalog file IRAS.ps is stored. It overrides the bindir variable near the start of the file libwcs/binread.c, which defaults to /data/catalogs.

Starbase Tab Table ASCII Catalogs

The full path the the directory must be specified.

TDC ASCII Catalogs

WCS_CATDIR sets the directory for the catalog, if it is not in the current working directory, overriding the catdir variable near the start of the file libwcs/catread.c which defaults to /data/catalogs.

TDC Binary Catalogs

WCS_BINDIR sets the directory for the catalog, if it is not in the current working directory, overriding the bindir variable near the start of the file libwcs/binread.c which defaults to /data/catalogs.

USNO-A1.0 Catalog

UA1_PATH sets the path to a single root directory where all of the catalog files reside. This overrides the ua1path variable near the start of the file libwcs/uacread.c which defaults to "/data/ua1".

UA1_ROOT sets the path to the directory where the 10 CDROMs (or any subset of them) are mounted. This overrides the cdroot variable cdroot near the start of that same source file which defaults to "/cdrom". This is only used if there is no path set to the single root directory.
This catalog is now obsolete; the USNO-A2.0 Catalog should be used instead.

USNO-SA1.0 Catalog

USA1_PATH contins the path to the root directory on the CDROM or on the hard disk to which the catalog has been copied. It overrides the usa1path variable near the start of the file libwcs/uacread.c which defaults to "/data/usnosa10".
This catalog is now obsolete; the USNO-SA2.0 Catalog should be used instead.

Tycho Catalog

Use of the USNO ACT Catalog or Tycho 2 Catalog, which compute proper motions over a longer baseline using the USNO AC2000 Catalog, is preferable.

Last updated 29 January 2003 by Doug Mink

Telescope Data Center