Friday, February 1, 2008

Star database

StarMapStudio ships with 79381 stars, binary stars and variable stars until 8^m5 derived from the Sky2000 catalogue from CDS (Centre de Données astronomiques de Strasbourg)

Using this catalogue, you can create your own star database for StarMapStudio with 299.167 stars until 12^m0. Please refer to the help files for more information.

Astronomical Object databases

The object database contains 9681 records for galaxies, open clusters, globular clusters and nebula and is derived from the Saguarao SAC770 database

Object names are given with a certain priority. If an object has a Messier name, that name will be used. If no Messier name is available, StarMapStudio will display the Caldwell name if available and so on. The priority list is as follows:

1. Messier objects
2. Caldwell objects
3. Herschel objects
4. NGC /  IC
5. Other catalogues

The complete lists with cross references Messier / Caldwell / Herschel and NGC:

Messier - 110 objects (PDF file ca.35 KB)
Caldwell - 109 objects (PDF file ca. 35 KB)
NGC - 7379 objects (PDF file ca. 489 KB)
IC - 198 objects (PDF file ca. 40 KB)
Other objects (PDF file ca.143 KB)

Projection Methods

Geometrical

• Azimuthal equidistant
• Azimuthal equal-area
• Azimuthal stereographic
• Azimuthal gnomonic
• Azimuthal orthographic
• Conical equidistant (both tangent and secant)
• Conical equal-area (both tangent and secant)
• Conical conformal (both tangent and secant)
• Cylindrical equirectangular (both tangent and secant)
• Cylindrical equal-area (both tangent and secant)
• Cylindrical Mercator (both tangent and secant)

Non-Geometrical Projections

• Aitoff
• Hammer
• Mercator-Sanson
• Mollweide
• Eckert nr. 2 / nr. 4 and nr. 6
• Winkel

An in-depth discussion on projection methods and cartographical functions can be found in the help files of StarMapStudio.