J/A+A/530/A93 de Houtman, Kepler and Halley star catalogs (Verbunt+ 2011)
Early star catalogues of the southern sky.
Verbunt, F., van Gent, R.H.
<Astron. Astrophys. 530, A93 (2011)>
=2011A&A...530A..93V 2011A&A...530A..93V
ADC_Keywords: Historical catalog ; Positional data
Keywords: astrometry - history and philosophy of astronomy
Abstract:
de Houtman in 1603, Kepler in 1627 and Halley in 1679 published the
earliest modern catalogues of the southern sky. We provide
machine-readable versions of these catalogues, make some comparisons
between them, and briefly discuss their accuracy on the basis of
comparison with data from the modern Hipparcos Catalogue. We also
compare our results for de Houtman with those by Knobel (1917) finding
good overall agreement. About half of the about 200 new stars (with
respect to Ptolemaios) added by de Houtman are in twelve new
constellations, half in old constellations like Centaurus, Lupus and
Argo. The right ascensions and declinations given by de Houtman have
error distributions with widths of about 40-arcmin, the longitudes and
latitudes given by Kepler have error distributions with widths of
about 45-arcmin. Halley improves on this by more than an order of
magnitude to widths of about 3-arcmin, and all entries in his
catalogue can be identified. The measurement errors of Halley are due
to a systematic deviation of his sextant (increasing with angle to
2-arcmin at 60-degrees) and random errors of 0.7-arcmin. The position
errors in the catalogue of Halley are dominated by the position errors
in the reference stars, which he took from Brahe.
Description:
We present Machine-readable versions of the star catalogues of de
Houtman (1602), Kepler (1627: Secunda Classis and Tertia Classis) and
Halley (1679). In addition to the data from the Historical catalogue,
the machine-readable version contains the modern identification with a
Hipparcos star and the latter's magnitude, and based on this
identification the positional accuracy. For Kepler's catalogues we
also give cross references to the catalogue of Ptolemaios (in the
edition by Toomer 1998).
File Summary:
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FileName Lrecl Records Explanations
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ReadMe 80 . This file
houtman.dat 70 304 Star Catalogue of de Houtman (1603)
classis.dat 82 434 Secunda Classis and Tertia Classis Kepler (1627)
aliter.dat 82 20 Variants on Secunda Classis (Kepler (1627)
halley.dat 139 341 Star catalogue of Halley (1679)
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See also:
I/239 : The Hipparcos and Tycho Catalogues (ESA 1997)
J/A+A/516/A28 : Star catalogue of Tycho Brahe (1627) (Verbunt+, 2010)
J/A+A/516/A29 : Star catalogue of Hevelius (1690) (Verbunt+, 2010)
Byte-by-byte Description of file: houtman.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1- 3 I3 --- F [1/304] Sequence number in de Houtman (1603)
Catalogue
5- 6 I2 --- C [1/21] Sequence number of constellation
8 A1 --- --- [=]
9- 11 A3 --- cst Abbreviation of constellation name
13- 14 I2 --- N [1/56] Sequence number of star in constellation
17- 19 I3 deg RAd [0/360] Degrees of right ascension (1)
21- 22 I2 arcmin RAm Minutes of right ascension (1)
24 A1 --- DE- Sign of declination (1)
25- 26 I2 deg DEd Degrees of declination (1)
28- 29 I2 arcmin DEm Arcminutes of declination (1)
32 I1 --- Vf magnitude as given by de Houtman (9=nebulous)
34- 39 I6 --- HIP Hipparcos number of identification
42 I1 --- I [1,6] Quality of identification (G3)
44 I1 --- v.K flag indicating comparison with Knobel (2)
46- 49 F4.1 --- Vmag Magnitude of Hipparcos identification
51- 56 F6.1 arcmin D-RA Difference in RA: Hipparcos-Houtman
58- 63 F6.1 arcmin D-DE Difference in DE: Hipparcos-Houtman
65- 70 F6.1 arcmin Del Offset between de Houtman star and
identification
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Note (1): The right ascension is given by RA=RAd+RAm/60;
the declination, always negative, is given by DE=-(DEd+DEm/60).
The equinox is assumed to be AD 1601.0
Note (2): Flag for comparison with Knobel (1917MNRAS..77..580K 1917MNRAS..77..580K and
1917MNRAS..77..414K 1917MNRAS..77..414K) as follows:
1 = same identification in Knobel
2 = identification in Knobel to alternative identification
3 = identification in Knobel different from our identification
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Byte-by-byte Description of file: classis.dat aliter.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1- 4 I4 --- K [1005/1438] Sequence number in
Classis Catalogue (1)
7- 8 I2 --- C [1/62] Sequence number of constellation (2)
10 A1 --- --- [=]
11- 13 A3 --- cst Abbreviation of constellation name
15- 16 I2 --- N [1/63] Sequence number of star in
constellation (3)
18- 19 I2 30deg Elon.Z [1,12] Zodiakal sign of ecliptic longitude,
Equinox AD1601 (G1)
21- 22 I2 deg Elon.d [0,30] Degrees of ecliptic longitude (G1)
24- 27 F4.1 arcmin Elon.m Minutes of ecliptic longitude (G1)
30- 31 I2 deg Elat.d Degrees of ecliptic latitude (G2)
33- 34 I2 arcmin Elat.m Arcminutes of ecliptic latitude (G2)
36 A1 --- Elat.- [AB] Sign of ecliptic latitude, Australis (-)
or Borealis (+), Equinox AD1601 (G2)
38 I1 --- VK [1,9] Magnitude as given by Kepler (4)
40- 45 I6 --- HIP Hipparcos number of identification
47 I1 --- I [1,6] Quality of identification (G3)
49- 52 F4.1 --- Vmag Magnitude of Hipparcos identification
53- 59 F7.1 arcmin Dlon Difference in longitude: Hipparcos-Kepler
61- 66 F6.1 arcmin Dlat Difference in latitude: Hipparcos-Kepler
68- 73 F6.1 arcmin Del Offset between Kepler star and identification
77- 80 I4 --- P [0/1028] Corresponding sequence number in
Ptolemaios (5)
82 I1 --- v.P Flag indicating comparison with Ptolemaios (5)
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Note (1):
* K < 1005 refers to the Kepler (1627) edition of Brahe's catalogue
* 1004 < K < 1303 refers to Secunda Classis, the entries in which
we number starting with 1005 (ending with 1302)
* K > 1302 refers to Tertia Classis
Note (2):
* C < 47 constellation in Kepler (1627) edition of Brahe catalogue,
to which star is added in Secunda Classis
* 46 < C < 51 constellation from catalogue of Ptolemaios, not present
in Brahe Catalogue, for which Secunda Classis lists stars
* C > 50 new constellations from Plancius, in Tertia Classis
It sometimes refers to the Secunda Classis. For detail see paper.
Note (3): Numbering continued for stars in constellation listed in Brahe;
starting with 1 for stars in constellations not listed in Brahe
Note (4): 8 = no magnitude given in catalogue; 9 = nebulous
Note (5): Comparison with our identification for corresponding star in
Toomer's 1998 edition of the star catalogue of Ptolemaios (Princeton
Univ. Press " Ptolemy's Almagest", 2nd ed.) as follows:
1 = same identification as for star in Classis
2 = identification to alternative identification
3 = identification different (including identification for new stars)
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Byte-by-byte Description of file: halley.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1- 3 I3 --- E Sequence number in Halley catalogue
5- 6 I2 --- C Sequence number of constellation
8 A1 --- --- [=]
9- 11 A3 --- cst Abbreviation of constellation name
13- 14 I2 --- N [1/46] Sequence number of star in constellation
16- 17 I2 30deg Elon.Z [1,12] Zodiakal sign of ecliptic longitude,
Equinox AD 1678 (G1)
19- 20 I2 deg Elon.d [0,30] Degrees of ecliptic longitude (G1)
22- 25 F4.1 arcmin Elon.m Minutes of ecliptic longitude (G1)
27 A1 --- Elat.- [-] Sign of ecliptic latitude (G2)
28- 29 I2 deg Elat.d Degrees of ecliptic latitude, Equinox 1678 (G2)
31- 34 F4.1 arcmin Elat.m Arcminutes of ecliptic latitude (G2)
36- 38 F3.1 --- VE Magnitude as given by Halley (9=nebulous)
40- 45 I6 --- HIP1 ? Hipparcos number of first standard star (2)
47- 48 I2 deg d1.d ? Degrees of angle to first standard star (2)
50- 51 I2 arcmin d1.m ? Arcminutes of angle to first standard star (2)
53- 54 I2 arcsec d1.s ? Arcseconds of angle to first standard star (2)
56- 61 I6 --- HIP2 ? Hipparcos number of second standard star (2)
63- 64 I2 deg d2.d ? Degrees of angle to second standard star (2)
66- 67 I2 arcmin d2.m ? Arcminutes of angle to 2nd standard star (2)
69- 70 I2 arcsec d2.s ? Arcseconds of angle to 2nd standard star (2)
72- 73 I2 --- n_HIP2 [-3,-1]? only one standard star used (2)
75- 80 I6 --- HIP ?=0 Hipparcos number of identification
82 I1 --- I [1,6] Quality of identification (G3)
84- 87 F4.1 --- Vmag ? Magnitude of Hipparcos identification
89- 94 F6.1 arcmin Dlon ? Difference in longitude: Hipparcos-Kepler
96-101 F6.1 arcmin Dlat ? Difference in latitude: Hipparcos-Kepler
103-108 F6.1 arcmin Del ? Offset between Kepler star and identification
110-115 I6 --- HIP3 ? Hipparcos number of third standard star (3)
117-118 I2 deg d3.d ? Degrees of angle to third standard star (3)
120-121 I2 arcmin d3.m ? Arcminutes of angle to third standard star (3)
123-124 I2 arcsec d3.s ? Arcseconds of angle to third standard star (3)
126-130 I5 --- HIP4 ? Hipparcos number of fourth standard star (3)
132-133 I2 deg d4.d ? Degrees of angle to fourth standard star (3)
135-136 I2 arcmin d4.m ? Arcminutes of angle to fourth standard star (3)
138-139 I2 arcsec d4.s ? Arcseconds of angle to fourth standard star (3)
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Note (2): Halley give measured angles to two standard stars; for some stars
more than two standard stars are given, sometimes only one standard
star is used, and combined with information from Brahe or Kepler. We
indicates these with following n_HIP2 values:
-1 = longitude from Brahe
-2 = latitude from Brahe
-3 = longitude from Kepler
These values are announced in the paper as "negative value for HIP"
Note (3): These parameters give extra distances to standard stars
for four sequence numbers, announced in the paper as
"at the end of the table, four sequence numbers are repeated".
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Global notes:
Note (G1): The ecliptic longitude is given by
λ = (Z-1)30+Elon.d+ Elon.m/60
* Equinox 1601 Jan 1, JD 2305824 for houtman, classis and aliter,
* Equinox 1678 Jan 1, JD 2333948 for halley
Note (G2): The ecliptic latitude is given by
β = ±(Elat.d+Elat.m/60); (+ for Borealis, - for Australis)
* Equinox 1601 Jan 1, JD 2305824 for houtman, classis and aliter
* Equinox 1678 Jan 1, JD 2333948 for halley
Note (G3): Flag 'I' as follows:
1 = secure identification with nearest star
2 = secure identification, even though not nearest star
3 = probable identification
4 = possible identification
5 = not identified
6 = double entry
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Acknowledgements:
Frank Verbunt, Astron. Inst. Utrecht University, f.w.m.verbunt(at)uu.nl
(End) F. Verbunt [Utrecht Univ., Netherlands], P. Vannier [CDS] 05-Apr-2011