GSC-ACT

Hi,
I'm from Italy.
I am searching for the 2 CD set of GSC-ACT as mentioned in
projectpluto site.
I sent many e-mail to projectpluto, all without reply from them.
Could somebody help me?
If somebody have these CDs and is able to send me a copy I will
refound cost and shipping charges (please contact me before).

Many thanks.
Flavio

Flavio Borgna wrote in message:
I am searching for the 2 CD set of GSC-ACT as mentioned in projectpluto
site.

Dear Flavio,

I suggest you join the Guide-User Yahoo group at:



and ask your question there...someone will most definitely be able to help
you.

I hope your skies in Italy are clearer than they are here in northeast Ohio!

Dave Jessie

Flavio Borgna wrote in message ...
snip I am searching for the 2 CD set of GSC-ACT as mentioned in
projectpluto site.

For a good summary of the various major catalogues applicable to
personal planetarium software, see the Cartes du Ciel "Sky Charts -
Catalog descriptions" page at:

http://www.stargazing.net/astropc/doc/ecatinfo.html
http://www.stargazing.net/astropc/do....html#internet

This Cartes du Ciel site contains download links for major catalogues,
including the Hubble Guide Star Catalogue that you reference.

Your referenced page at projectpluto is:
http://www.projectpluto.com/gsc_act.htm

As the projectpluto author notes, the Hubble Guide Star Catalogue-ACT
(Lasker 1996) is no longer published by its authors on a two CD set:
http://ad.usno.navy.mil/act/act.html

Therefore, the projectpluto author sells the hard CDs:
http://www.projectpluto.com/gsc_act2.htm

Another alternative is find a high-speed internet connection, at a
university or library for example, and then download the Hubble GST
catalogue onto a zip disk or memory stick:

The HST Guide Star Catalog, Version GSC-ACT (Lasker+ 1996-99)
http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/Cat?I/254
ftp://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/pub/cats/I/254

This was the technique that I used to obtain my copy.

The GSC goes to magnitude 15 but contains no two color photometry.
"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 Cartes du Ciel site references a "compact" 300 megabyte version of
the Hubble GSC-ACT, version GSC-ACT1.3 at:
http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/Cat?I/255
ftp://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/pub/cats/I/255

Other catalogues of interest are the USNO A-2.0 catalogue:

http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/Cat?I/252
ftp://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/pub/cats/I/252
"USNO-A2.0 is a catalog of 526,280,881 stars, and is based on a
re-reduction of the Precision Measuring Machine (PMM) scans that were
the basis for the USNO-A1.0 catalog. The major difference between A2.0
and A1.0 is that A1.0 used the Guide Star Catalog (Lasker et al. 1986,
see Cat. I/220) as its reference frame whereas A2.0 uses the ICRF as
realized by the USNO ACT catalog (Urban et al. 1997, see Cat.
II/246)."

and the Tycho-2 catalogue (to mag 11.5 with two-color photometry):

Tycho-2 Catalogue
http://vizier.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/V...source=Tycho-2
ftp://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/pub/cats/I/259
http://www.stargazing.net/astropc/download.html (Cartes du Ciel
download site)
http://www.astro.ku.dk/~erik/Tycho-2/ (Tycho 2 homepage)

"The Tycho-2 Catalogue is an astrometric reference catalogue
containing positions and proper motions as well as two-colour
photometric data for the 2.5 million brightest stars in the sky."

USNO-A.20 has been superceded by USNO-B1.0 However, USNO-B1.0
contains about 1 billion stars and spans 11 CDs, making it not very
useable for most personal planetarium software packages:

USNO-B1.0
ftp://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/pub/cats/I/284
http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/Cat?I/284
"The USNO-B1.0 is a catalog that presents positions, proper motions,
magnitudes in various optical passbands, and star/galaxy estimators
for 1,045,913,669" objects.

Again, start at the Cartes du Ciel "Sky Charts - Catalog descriptions"
page at:
http://www.stargazing.net/astropc/doc/ecatinfo.html
http://www.stargazing.net/astropc/do....html#internet

- Canopus

(Canopus) wrote in message . com...

[snip]...
Other catalogues of interest are the USNO A-2.0 catalogue:
http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/Cat?I/252
ftp://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/pub/cats/I/252

[more snipping]...
[and] USNO-B1.0
ftp://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/pub/cats/I/284
http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/Cat?I/284

On and off, I've been trying to download the USNO A-2.0 catalogue
(because GSC doesn't go deep enough for recent needs). We don't (yet)
have proper broadband to our village and given that "zone" files often
run to hundreds of Mb each, I wouldn't even try downloading them from
there.

I've been using the fat pipe at work when time and inclination allows,
but it's been frustrating. Dropped sessions, timeouts, corrupt files
and the like mean it's taken 5 weeks (elapsed) just to get the first 3
zone files (from the USNO ftp site - which doesn't seem hosted on a
particularly beefy server).

I give up!

Can I get this on a DVD from anywhere (I'm in the UK)? Seems all the
"early" sources have stopped providing hard-copy services. I wonder if
the B1.0 is available on DVD(s)too?

Thanks
Beats

(Canopus) writes:

USNO-A.20 has been superceded by USNO-B1.0 However, USNO-B1.0
contains about 1 billion stars and spans 11 CDs, making it not very
useable for most personal planetarium software packages:

Actually, it is USNO-A2.0 that is (was) distributed on 11 CDs (its
still available for download). USNO-B1.0 at 80GB is not distributed as
a complete catalog at all, AFAIK, and definitely not on CDs.

pej
--
Per Erik Jorde

Per Erik Jorde wrote in message ...
Erik corrected that:

Actually, it is USNO-A2.0 that is (was) distributed on 11 CDs (its
still available for download). USNO-B1.0 at 80GB is not distributed as
a complete catalog at all, AFAIK, and definitely not on CDs.

Erik, thanks for the correction; they are always welcomed.

In reviewing available historical usenet posts in this group, e.g.
searching for Brian Skiff's historical posts under the topic "'star
catalogue' and Skiff", it looks like it might be helpful have an
update of the "Star catalogue" threads posted. Such an update would
contain an overview of current catalogues for astrometry, photometry,
double stars, high-proper motion stars, dark clouds, CN stars, Yale
Bright Star, suitable for general planetarium and/or PDA handhelds,
etc.

I am not experienced enough to do that, but post this note as a
suggestion for long-time frequent posters. Prior threads in this
category of posts in this usenet group include:

Brian Skif 1/23/1997 Subject: Upcoming giant star catalogues and sky
atlases
Message-ID:

Bill Ferris 2/15/2002 " USNO-A2.0 vs. GSC"
Message-ID:

Randy Rogers 3/11/2000 " Star Charts"
Message-ID: uA4ytG8i$GA.70@cpmsnbbsa02#1/1

Flavio, in rereading your initial post, and since it is the holiday
season, if you contact me private email with a surface delivery
address, I will prepare a 2 disk set containing:

1) The 300 meg condensed GSC catalogue:
Hubble GSC-ACT, version GSC-ACT1.3 at:
http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/Cat?I/255
ftp://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/pub/cats/I/255

2) a Tycho 1 and 2 catalogues.

But please try to capture it over the web first per my earlier post.
If that is not practical for you, let me know by private email. That
offer extends to Flavio only.

Sincerely - Canopus