Astronomical Catalogs

Exercises

Simple searches:

What sort of object is NGC 7741? Write down its RA and Dec, please.
What sort of object is 3C 144? Bonus points for explaining what "3C" stands for ....
What color are the brightest stars in M3?
Catalog queries:
How many bright stars -- where "bright" means "B magnitude less than 10.0" -- are there within a one-degree circle centered on NGC 7741? Query the SIMBAD interface to the USNO A2.0 catalog
How many faint stars -- where "faint" means magnitudes between 16 and 22 -- are there per square degree around the variable star R Virginis? (Hint: pick a small region, maybe a circle 3 arcminutes in radius, count the stars, then compute the number per square degree assuming a constant density.)
Use the SIMBAD interface to the Hipparcos Catalogs to run a query on the Hipparcos Main Catalog, I/239/hip_main.
- Find all stars with parallax (Plx) greater than 500 milliarcseconds; those stars are very close, within a few light years of Earth.
- Which of these stars might be visible from Rochester?
- Can you make a finding chart for this star? Try using the Aladin tool. Find a partner in the class sitting next to you. Have one person make a chart using
```
    POSSI    DSS1/STScI  E (Red)     ~14.1x14.1'   
      
```
  and the other person using
```
    POSSII   DSS2/STScI  F (Red)     ~12.9x12.9'   
      
```
- Compare your picture to that of your partner.

For more information

I love reading about the history of astronomy. One of my favorite books is J. B. Hearnshaw's The Measurement of Starlight, which focuses on the instruments developed in the past two centuries to measure stellar brightness. You can find a copy in the RIT Library.