V/61 Almagest (Ptolemy's Star Catalog)
The Almagest: Ptolemy's star catalogue
Ptolemy C.: Almagest (years 127-141)
Manitius K.: 1913
<ed. B.G. Teubner, Leipzig (1913)>
Jaschek C.: 1987
<Bull. Inform. CDS 33, 145 (1987)>
=1987BICDS..33..125J 1987BICDS..33..125J
ADC_Keywords: Historical catalog
Description (from BICDS 33, 1987):
This catalogue is the machine readable version of the star catalogue
given by Claudius Ptolemy in his book called usually the Almagest. It
is based upon its translation by K. Manitius (ed. B.G. Teubner,
Leipzig 1913).
The table reproduces the values given in book VII, chapter V, namely
Identification, name, longitude, latitude and magnitude. To facilitate
its use the following changes were made:
Identifications : the numbers of Ambronn's catalogue (used by
Manitius) were replaced by the numbers in the Bright Star Catalogue
(D. Hoffleit and C. Jaschek - Fourth edition - Yale University
Observatory 1982) which are commonly used today.
Name : we have kept the Bayer names but omitted the description given
by Manitius (for instance alpha UMi = that of the end of the tail).
Whenever a disagreement exists concerning the identification of a
given star, this is signaled by a "D" (disagreement) in the notes
(last column). The list of disagreements was taken from Werner H. and
Schmeidler F., "Synopsis der Nomenklatur der Fixsterne" - Wissensch.
Verlags-Gesellschaft Stuttgart (1986) where the interested reader
may find detailed references. Most of the disagreements stem from the
work of Peters and Knobel, Washington 1915.
Longitude : the Ptolomean longitudes were converted into the commonly
used longitudes by adding 0 to longitudes in Aries, 30 to those in
Taurus, etc. Longitudes vary thus between 0 and 360 .
Latitudes : no change from Ptolemy.
Magnitudes : no change from Ptolemy.
Notes : "D" stands for disagreements over identifications, see above.
With the publication of a computer readable version of this catalogue
we hope to satisfy a long standing need. We also pay in this way our
debt of gratitude toward the astronomer who produced the most used
catalogue in the history of astronomy - for more than fourteen
centuries it was THE catalogue by definition. It seems only
appropriate that a data center, who is in a long way a descendant of
such an enterprise, includes the catalogue in its collection.
See also:
V/50 : The Bright Star Catalogue
File Summary:
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FileName Lrecl Records Explanations
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ReadMe 80 . This file
north 47 360 Northern part (except Zodiacal stars)
south 47 317 Southern part (except Zodiacal stars)
zod-n 47 167 Zodiacal stars, North
zod-s 47 183 Zodiacal stars, South
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Byte-by-byte Description of file: north south zod-n zod-s
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1- 16 A16 --- Const Constellation name
18- 21 I4 --- HR [0/9110]? Bright Star Number, 0 if cluster
22- 24 A3 --- m_HR Second HR number for binaries
26- 27 I2 --- Seq Number in constellation
29- 31 I3 deg Lon.d Ptolemean (ecliptic) longitude (degrees) (1)
33- 34 I2 arcmin Lon.m Ptolemean (ecliptic) longitude (minutes) (1)
36 A1 --- Lat- Ptolemean (ecliptic) latitude (sign)
37- 38 I2 deg Lat.d Ptolemean (ecliptic) latitude (degrees)
40- 41 I2 arcmin Lat.m Ptolemean (ecliptic) latitude (minutes)
43- 45 F3.1 mag Mag [1/8] Ptolemean magnitude (2)
47 A1 --- Disag [D] 'D' if a disagreement exists
concerning identification
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Note (1): the Ptolomean longitudes were converted by adding 30deg in Taurus
etc (see Description).
The epoch of observation is compared to -128 by Grasshoff G., 1990,
"The history of Ptolemy's Star Catalogue", ed. G.J. Toomer,
Springer-Verlag (ISBN 0-387-97181-5)
Note (2): the Ptolomean magnitudes are only integer numbers between 1 and 6;
the values "7." correspond to "faint", and "8." for "nebula".
The decimal value "m.3" (m between 1 and 4) indicate original "(m)-(m+1)"
The decimal value "m.7" (m between 1 and 4) indicate original "(m-1)-(m)"
Examples: "2.7" correspond to original "3-2"
"3.3" correspond to original "3-4"
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Historical Notes:
* 1987: Keypunched at CDS, Strasbourg;
original technical note prepared by O.Yu. Malkov
* 17-Jul-1995: Documentation standardized at CDS
* 12-Aug-2014: HR 8739 corrected for HR 39 (gam Peg) in "north" table
thanks to Eric Mamajek, emamajek (at) pas.rochester.edu
* 03-Nov-2016: HD 1698 corrected into HD 2061 (alpha Ori) in "south" table
(from Eric Mamajek, emamajek (at) pas.rochester.edu)
(End) Francois Ochsenbein [CDS] 17-Jul-1995