I/255             The HST Guide Star Catalog, Version GSC-ACT  (Lasker+ 1996-99)

The Guide Star Catalog Version 1.1-ACT (GSC-ACT Catalogue) Lasker B.M., Russel J.N., Jenkner H. <The Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. ([c] 1989, 1992, 1996)> The Guide Star Catalog Version 1.0 is described in a series of papers: I. Astronomical foundations and image processing Lasker B.M., Sturch C.R., McLean B.J., Russell J.L., Jenkner H., Shara M.M. <Astron. J., 99, 2019 (1990)> =1990AJ.....99.2019L 1990AJ.....99.2019L II. Photometric and astrometric models and solutions Russell J.L., Lasker B.M., McLean B.J., Sturch C.R., Jenkner H. <Astron. J., 99, 2059-2081 (1990)> =1990AJ.....99.2059R 1990AJ.....99.2059R III. Production, database organization, and population statistics Jenkner H., Lasker B.M., Sturch C.R., McLean B.J., Shara M.M., Russell J.L. <Astron. J., 99, 2082 (1990)> =1990AJ.....99.2082J 1990AJ.....99.2082J
ADC_Keywords: Surveys ; Positional data Description: The Guide Star Catalog (GSC), which has been constructed to support the operational need of the Hubble Space Telescope contains nearly 19 million objects brighter than sixteenth magnitude, of which more than 15 million are classified as stars. This catalog provides positions and magnitudes for these stars. The original version of this catalog, GSC 1.0, is described in a series of papers: Lasker et al. (1990AJ.....99.2019L 1990AJ.....99.2019L); Russell et al. (1990AJ.....99.2059R 1990AJ.....99.2059R); and Jenkner et al. (1990AJ.....99.2082J 1990AJ.....99.2082J) The reference material for the GSC 1.2 reduction is the "Positions and Proper Motions Catalogue": PPM-North, Roeser S. and Bastian U., 1988, Cat. I/146 PPM-South, Bastian U. and Roeser S., 1993, Cat. I/193 PPM-Suppl, Roeser S., Bastian U. and Kuzmin A., 1994, Cat. I/208 and the Astrographic Catalogue (AC) which was used to remove the mean systematics common to all the plates. The GSC GSC-ACT is a recalibration of GSC1.1 using the ACT (Astrographic Catalog/Tycho, catalog I/246) performed by the Project Pluto ("See also" section below). The "plate RMS" values are given at http://www.projectpluto.com/results.txt, with most plates coming in at under .3 arcseconds File Summary: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- FileName Lrecl Records Explanations -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ReadMe 80 . This file regions.dat 47 9537 The corners of each small region GSC/* . . Compact version of GSC (for Unix or Linux) out.sam 68 100 Sample output (out of 25,258,765 positions) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- See also: http://gsss.stsci.edu/catalogs/gsc/gsc2/gsc2.htm : GSC pages at STScI I/220 : The HST Guide Star Catalog, Version 1.1 (Lasker+ 1992) I/254 : The HST Guide Star Catalog, Version 1.2 (Lasker+ 1992) I/239 : The Hipparcos and Tycho Catalogues (ESA 1997) I/246 : The ACT Reference Catalog (Urban+ 1997) I/250 : The Tycho Reference Catalogue (Hog+ 1998) http://www.projectpluto.com/gsc_act.htm : GSC-ACT Original Description Byte-by-byte Description of file: out.sam -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bytes Format Units Label Explanations -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1- 10 I10 --- GSC *GSC designation 12- 20 F9.5 deg RAdeg Right ascension in J2000, epoch of plate 22- 30 F9.5 deg DEdeg Declination in J2000, epoch of plate 33- 36 F4.1 arcsec PosErr Mean error on position 38- 42 F5.2 mag Pmag photographic magnitude (see n_Pmag) 44- 47 F4.2 mag e_Pmag Mean error on photographic magnitude 49- 50 I2 --- n_Pmag *[0,18] Coded passband for magnitude 52 I1 --- Class [0,3] Class of object (0=star; 3=non-stellar) 54- 57 A4 --- Plate *Plate designation 59- 66 F8.3 yr Epoch *? Epoch of plate 68 A1 --- Mult [TF] True if multiple object / False otherwise -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Note on GSC: the GSC Identification is made of a plate number (5 digits) and star number on the plate (5 digits); note that, in the literature, a dash separates generally the two parts. Note on n_Pmag: the number designates the following combination of emulsion and filter: magband emulsion filter Notes ------- -------- -------- ----------------------- 0 IIIaJ GG395 SERC-J/EJ 1 IIaD W12 Pal Quick-V 3 --- B Johnson 4 --- V Johnson 5 IIIaF RG630 Red 6 IIaD GG495 Pal QV/AAO XV 7 103aO --- POSS-I Blue 8 103aE red plex POSS-I Red 10 IIaD GG495 GPO Astrograph 11 103aO GG400 Black Birch Astrograph 16 IIIaJ GG495 QV 18 IIIaJ GG385 POSS-II Blue ------- -------- -------- ----------------------- Note on Plate, Epoch: two plates (+056 and +017) represent data from catalogues (mainly Hipparcos Input Catalogue, Cat. I/196). They have no associated epoch. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Byte-by-byte Description of file: regions.dat -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bytes Format Units Label Explanations -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1- 5 I5 --- num Number of region 7- 8 I2 h RA0h Low limit of right ascension, hours (J2000) 10-11 I2 min RA0m Low limit of right ascension, minutes (J2000) 13-17 F5.2 s RA0s Low limit of right ascension, seconds (J2000) 19-20 I2 h RA1h High limit of right ascension, hours (J2000) 22-23 I2 min RA1m High limit of right ascension, minutes (J2000) 25-29 F5.2 s RA1s High limit of right ascension, seconds (J2000) 31 A1 --- DE0- Low limit of declination, sign (J2000) 32-33 I2 deg DE0d Low limit of declination, degrees (J2000) 35-38 F4.1 arcmin DE0m Low limit of declination, minutes (J2000) 40 A1 --- DE1- High limit of declination, sign (J2000) 41-42 I2 deg DE1d High limit of declination, degrees (J2000) 44-47 F4.1 arcmin DE1m High limit of declination, minutes (J2000) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(End) Bill Gray [Project Pluto], Francois Ochsenbein [CDS] 15-Sep-1999
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