Re: [Stellarium-pubdevel] How to add or update information on stellarium stars catalog

SourceForge Headquarters 1320 Columbia Street Suite 310 San Diego, CA 92101 +1 (858) 422-6466

All data processing was done in MySQL 5.1-32 Community version
run under Windows XP SP1.

All the tests were run on the following configuration.
Compaq Presario 2100 (notebook), CPU AMD 1.6 GHz, Video ATI Radeon IGP 320M
RAM 448 MB* (2 x 256 MB - 64 MB used by onboard video card)
Windows XP Home SP1, limited user.
Version: 0.10.2, default installation (no additional objects, catalogues, plugins)
Other settings: flag_milky_way = false, fullscreen = false, 
screen_w = 800, screen_h = 600, flag_point_star = true
(* note: later updated to 2 x 512 MB; Stellarium observed in task manager
would still manage in 2 x 256 MB; MySQL simply needs a lot of memory for huge queries).

Search function is wonderful but a little limited and
finding out that for example search for RR Lyr or V497 Cep or V Oph 
could not be made was a bit disappointing.
So here is an attempt to improve it a little, the results are below.

I. Variable stars

Used data sources: I/239 Periodic variables,
B/GCVS, GCVS from http://www.sai.msu.su/groups/cluster/gcvs/gcvs/
(more up to date than CDS version, data from June 09 were used for
this output), Simbad database at CDS.

Acknowledgement should be given for the use of GCVS catalog
maintained at Astronomical Council of Russian Academy of Sciences 
and Sternberg Astronomical Institute of the Moscow State University.

Only confirmed variables were included in the data,
suspected variables were excluded. If there is interest in
them, data can be prepared too.
The variables that have either Flamsteed or Bayer designation 
in I/239 or GCVS catalogues were also excluded not to create
unnecessary duplicate records with names.fab.
The following entries were blocked too: 
(CV Aqr, DU Aqr,GT Com, KN Gem, TU Leo, V1548 Oph, V2063 Oph,
HW Tau, V0421 Tau). For more informations see paragraph VI.

The file vars.fab/gcvs.fab was appended to the file name.fab
(that is how I discovered the defect #16; Altair, HIP 97649
is also V1719 Aql and 53 Aql) for testing. 
Stellarium 0.10.2 worked without any problem or 
performance degradation.
This is not how it should be implemented in production, 
the separate file variable.fab (or vars.fab) should be in stars\default 
directory but my apology that my knowledge of C/C++ is not sufficient 
to implement a complete patch. (If Stellarium were programmed in 
SQl or procedural SQL I could contribute a lot but for the
time being I can only contribute data or analysis).

I am aware this is still not complete data, ideally
we would have 41638 variable names but that is
maximum what can be achieved at the moment.

Files: vars.fab, gcvs.fab, variable.fab
vars.fab - contains variable designation such as Z Peg, 
gcvs.fab - contains GCVS designation in the format GCVS 010045, 
variable.fab - contains both designations.
Note that the file variable.fab will provide only half result due
to the bug #16.

II. Alternate designations

At the moment the search can be done using Hipparcos identifiers,
Flamsteed and Bayer designations and some traditional names.
There are many more designations used in the literature
and Stellarium 0.10.2 search does not work for them.
Results of an attempt to extend functionality is below.

Used data sources: I/239 The Hipparcos Main Catalogue,
I/239 The main part of Tycho Catalogue,
IV/25 HD identifications for Tycho-2 stars,
I/113A General Catalogue of 33342 stars (GC),
I/264 Sixth Catalogue of Fundamental Stars,
V/50 Bright Star Catalogue, 5th Revised Ed.,
I/131A SAO Star Catalog J2000,
I/80 Catalog of 5268 Standard Stars, Normal System N30.

The contents of the file name.fab was replaced with the contents
of the file crossref.fab/separate files for testing.
Up to 117894 designations were loaded without problems or
performance degradation (the highest number of records possible 
to test with 0.10.2 was 118024; the bug #16 prevents the testing
of complete crossref.fab file; separate files can be used without any problem).
Again, that is not how it should be implemented
in production the separate file crossref.fab should be 
in stars\default directory.
The file crossref.fab contains designations:
HIP, HD, DM(BD, CD, CPD), GC, SAO, TYC, HR, FK6, N30.

Unfortunately I was not able to establish join between Hipparcos
catalogue and Southern Durchmusterung.

The relationships between catalogues are not 1:1, they are
rather 1:M or M:1 so there might be one Hipparcos object
having more than one designation of the same type
(such as two TYC numbers).

The purpose of crossref.fab file is to enable the use of search function
for locating objects using different designations and to display
additional info using alternate key (cyclic key) (for more
elaboration on this see paragraph IV below),
not to display this information "on the star" when you click 
on the the object unlike name or FLM/BAY.

Note: currently only HIP numbers are visible and "exportable"
in the text files. Suggestion for future feature change: primary
catalogue of Stellarium is Hipparcos, secondary Tycho. Would it be
possible to change structure of the files to include both
HIP and TYC identifiers, for example H:97649|Altair
T:432-1027-1|V2502 Oph, where H - would indicate Hipparcos catalogue,
T - would indicate Tycho catalogue.

Files: 
bd.fab - contains Bonner Durchmusterung designations,
cd.fab - contains Cordoba Durchmusterung designations, 
cpd.fab - contains Cape Photographic Durchmusterung designations 
fk6.fab - contains Sixth Catalogue of Fundamental Stars (FK6) designations, 
gc.fab - contains General Catalogue designations, 
hd.fab - contains Henry Draper designations, 
hr.fab - contains Bright Star Catalogue - Harvard Revised designations, 
n30.fab - contains Catalog of 5268 Standard Stars, Normal System N30 designations, 
sao.fab - contains Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory Star catalog designations, 
tyc.fab - contains Tycho Catalogue designations, 
crossref.fab - all of the above combined.

III. Double and multiple stars

At first, I just wished to have Aitken Visual Star Catalogue 
and Struve numbers available. Well, it grew a bit larger and the file
multiple.fab contains the following identifiers:
HIP, ADS - Aitken, BDS - Burnham, IDS - Index Catalogue, 
WDS - Washington, CCDM, COU - Couteau, TDSC. I still miss complete
sigma and osigma numbers (F.G.W. Struve, O. Struve), if anyone
knows where to find them please let me know.

Used data sources: I/239 The Hipparcos Main Catalogue,
I/209A Catalogue of 2700 double stars,
I/274 CCDM (Catalog of Components of Double & Multiple stars),
I/276 Tycho Double Star Catalogue (TDSC).

The contents of the file name.fab was replaced with the contents
of the files below for testing. No problems were detected.

Files: ads.fab - Aitken Double Stars Catalogue designations, 
bds.fab - Burnham Visual Binary Stars designations, 
ccdm.fab - CCDM designations, 
couteau.fab - Couteau designations, 
ids.fab - Index Catalogue of Double Stars designations, 
tdsc.fab - Tycho Double Star Catalogue designations, 
wds.fab - Washington Double Star Catalogue designations, 
multiple.fab - all of the above combined.

IV. Traditional star names

I am aware this can be contentious area. There are many duplicate
or misplaced names and many people can have their own
preferences, for example I myself grew up with Kochab and Etamin
whereas other people may prefer Kocab and Eltanin. There may
be different spellings when transliterating fricatives
like ph-f, or sh-sch, losing articles like El, etc. But still it
might be worth to add a little to the file starnames.fab.

eps Dra Tyl						97433
nu1,2 Dra Kuma					85819, 85829
sig Dra Alsafi					96100
psi Dra Dsiban					86614, 86620, 87728
gam Cas Cih						4427
eps Cas Segin					8886
eta Cas Achird					3821
eps Leo Ras Elased Australis	47908
bet Crv Kraz					61359
eps Crv Minkar					59316
del Vir Minelauva				63090
zet Vir Heze					66249
alf Com Diadem					64241
the Boo Asellus Primus			70497
iot Boo Asellus Secundus		69713
kap1,2 Boo Asellus Tertius		69481, 69483
del Her Sarin					84379
nu. Sco Jabbah					79374
bet2 Sgr Arkab Posterior		95294
nu. Cap Alshat					100310
del Aql Deneb Okab				95501
eps Del Deneb Dulfim			101421
eta Lyr Aladfar					94481
ome1,2 Cyg Ruchba				101138, 101243
tau Peg Salm					115250
bet Psc Fum al Samakah			113889
omi Psc Torcularis Septentrionalis	8198
gam Cet Al Kaff al Jidhmah		12706
eta Cet Deneb Algenubi			5364
iot Cet Deneb Kaitos			1562
eta Per Miram					13268
kap Per Misam					14668
pi. Per Gorgonea Secunda		13879
rho Per Gorgonea Tertia			14354
ome Per Gorgonea Quarta			14817
gam Tau Prima Hyadum / Hyadum I		20205
del1 Tau Secunda Hyadum / Hyadum II	20455
22 Tau Asterope II				17588
del Eri Rana					17378
ups2 Eri Theemin				21393
tau2 Eri Angetenar				13288
53 Eri Sceptrum					21594
mu. CMa Isis					33345
iot Ori Hatysa					26241
ups Ori Thabit					25923
zet Aur Haedus I				23453
eta Aur Haedus II				23767
iot Aur Hassaleh				23015
eta Gem Tejat Prior				29655
bet Cnc Al Tarf					40526
31 Lyn Mabsuthat				41075
sig Hya Minchir					42402
11 UMi Pherkad Minor			74793	
46 LMi Praecipua				53229

There are also alternative names to the already existing ones in the file
star_names.fab (such as Alphecca - Gemma - Gnosia or Izar - Mirak - Pulcherrima
and many others) but I avoided implementing them 
until the question of how to display them painlessly is resolved (see below).

File: trnames.fab - contains 59 star names.

Note: suggestion for the future feature change.
Change the structure of the file into 
H:677|M|Alpheratz
H:677| |Sirrah

M indicates the primary, most traditionally name used.
Space indicates secondary name/s, an arbitrary number of them.

Now to the question of displaying additional information (also
referenced from section II): 
There are two states, first, no object selected, you are just moving across the sky,
second, you select an object with the mouse and info appears.

In the first state only the starnames with M indicator are displayed
so there is only one name and we avoid clutter when displaying sky.
Like the current processing, the amount of labels depends on the setting
in Labels and Markers.

Once the user clicks on an object and enters the second
state with object selected the following information is displayed:

Current implementation:

Regulus (α Leo) - HIP 49669
Magnitude:
Absolute magnitude:
RA/DE (J2000):
RA/DE (of date): 
Hour angle/DE:
Az/Alt:
Spectral: 
Distance:
Parallax: 

Suggested change in the first line:

HIP 999999 BAY1-V (BAY2-O) FLM M-Name/Alternate name/Other Designations.

Now comes into play the cyclic key (Ctrd-D or any other that looks suitable)
(cyclic because on each press of the key new information is displayed).
Cyclic key (Ctrl-D) for displaying additional info (in brackets):
HIP, BAY (V-valid, O-obsolete), FLM, Starname [/ Starnames ]/ [Other Designations ]/ Nothing

Pictures may give clearer idea what I have in mind than explanations above.

Files: the pictures edited in gimp (font used in the pictures is not significant,
graphical arrangement such as spaces, brackets, order of designations, etc. either, 
the only point is to clutter the sky as little as possible).

stellarium-whatisnow.png - current implementation

stellarium-whatcouldbe1.png - changed implementation when you click on the star
stellarium-whatcouldbe2.png - changed implementation when you click on the star
and repeatedly press Ctrl-D (or any other chosen key).
stellarium-whatcouldbe3.png - ditto
stellarium-whatcouldbe4.png - ditto
stellarium-whatcouldbe5.png - ditto
stellarium-whatcouldbe6.png - coming back to the original display when you click on the star
and the whole process of using Ctrl-D can start again.

(This has to be tested with other than full screen resolutions so that
there is not info line cut).

V. Other findings

At first I searched for 32 Cam (I suspect it is HIP 62572 but another source
puts it as 27949 so it still not confirmed). Instead there are 251
additional designations (10 Bayer, 241 Flamsteed) available.

Used data sources: Simbad,
IV/27 HD-DM-GC-HR-HIP-Bayer-Flamsteed Cross Index

Files: supplnam.fab - contains 251 additional Bayer/Flamsteed designations, 
named.fab - name.fab together with supplnam.fab including 2 duplicates in name.fab, 
name.fab - name.fab together with supplnam.fab excluding 2 duplicates in name.fab.

Note: genuine duplicates in name.fab:
' 14376', '52_Ari', 2
' 36850', '66_Gem', 2

VI. Hypothetical objects

This was just the file where I put problematic cases when dealing
with catalogues but it could be a part of Stellarium program
enabling switching to appropriate state. For example, ngc2000names.dat
does not contain M40 because it is not nebular object and would cause
crash when referenced in ngc2000.dat.

hypo.fab

34 Tau|Uranus
47 Tuc|M 104
M40| Winnecke 4

HR 92|Nova 1572 / B Cas
HR 95|47 Tuc
HR 182|S And
HR 1057|Nova 1901 / GK Per
HR 1841|Nova 1891 / T Aur
HR 2472|Nova 1903 / DM Gem
HR 2496|NGC 2281
HR 3515|M67
HR 3671|NGC 2808
HR 6309|Nova 1848 / V841 Oph
HR 6515|Nova 1604 / V843 Oph
HR 7189|Nova 1899 / V1016 Sgr
HR 7539|Nova 1670 / CK Vul
HR 8296|Nova 1876 / Q Cyg

Final notes:

I checked readmes of all the catalog files for copyright restrictions
or prohibitions of data processing and have not found any such limitations
except IV/22 which I have not used because it was not of much use anyway.
Appropriate credits for use of data still should be given to the CDS at Strasbourg
and Russian Academy of Sciences and Sternberg Astronomical Institute in Moscow.

Last but not least, all the text files were created from MySQL running under
Windows XP, the end of line convention is LF in all the files.

Re: [Stellarium-pubdevel] How to add or update information on stellarium stars catalog

A planetarium software that shows a 3D simulation of the night sky

Re: [Stellarium-pubdevel] How to add or update information on stellarium stars catalog