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Usage

bright ra=hh:mm:ss dec=dd:mm:ss [equinox=1950] [bright=#] [faint=#] /
[box=#] [help] [north=#] [south=#] [fk5] [sao] [tycho] [debug]
This program looks up the nearest bright star from the Yale bright star catalog, the FK5 (if fk5 option is selected) or the SAO catalog (with the sao option). All coordinates are corrected for proper motion to the current epoch.

The output is a single line with a format similar to the following:

12:05:00.303 +08:45:18.63 1996.00    4.12        450 3.470
where the first, second, and third fields are the ra and dec and epoch (1950.0), the fourth field is the V magnitude, the fifth field is the SAO star number, and the last field is the B magnitude (*I think*). The box flag changes the mode of operation slightly in that all stars within the specified box size are printed out (in order of increasing R.A.).
fk5
selects the FK5 star catalog instead of the Yale.
sao
selects the SAO star catalog instead of the Yale.
tycho
selects the Tycho-2 star catalog instead of the Yale.
ra=
hh:mm:ss specifies center search R.A.
dec=
dd:mm:ss specifies center search declination.
equinox=
yyyy specifies the optional equinox (default: 1950)
bright=
# where # is the magnitude of the brightest star to search for (default=-1.5).
faint=
# where # is the faintest star magnitude to search for (default=6.5 for Yale).
box=
# prints all stars within the specified box of # degrees on each side.
north=
specifies optional north declination limit.
south=
specifies optional south declination limit.
The original catalog is hatcat.srt which contains in ASCII a listing of

SAO_number ra dec pm_ha pm_dec error mag
where the ra is in decimal hours, dec in decimal degrees (epoch 1950). The proper motion, pm_ha and pm_dec, is in seconds of ra and seconds of arc per year for the r.a. and declination respectively. Lines with the `#' character at the beginning of the line are skipped. The program makecat converts this ASCII form to binary structures used by the bright program.

The environment variable CATALOGHOME should be set to point to the directory in which hatcat.bin resides. The default value is the current working directory. NOTE: The behavior around R.A. 0 and 24 hours may not correct properly for wrap-around. Also there are some variable stars present in the catalog, which have not been commented out.


next up previous contents
Next: dist - calculates angular Up: bright - locates bright Previous: bright - locates bright   Contents
Louis-Gregory Strolger 2012-01-09