Getting hold of the (complete) Hipparcos catalogue...?

[Evil Dr Ganymede]

I'd like to get my own copy of the Hipparcos data, but I'm not sure where to find it.

I've tracked down a catalogue at CDS, at:
http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/VizieR?-source=I/239

But while this gives me all the positions and parallaxes of the 118,000 or so that Hipparcos has catalogued, it doesn't appear to provide the spectral type and mass (which I also need).

Is there anywhere else that can provide this info in ASCII format? Or is the spectral type/mass all folded up in the B-V column (and if so, how do I get it out of there?!)?

Would Chris have a copy of this catalogue with all of that info that he used for Celestia?

[Guest]

The full catalogue is available from CDS - go to http://vizier.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/ftp-index?I/239 and download hip_main.dat.gz.

Hipparcos is an observational catalogue, so it doesn't contain masses, but the spectral types are listed.

Grant

[granthutchison]

PS to my above post (not logged in): for the data format of the main catalogue, look at the ReadMe file.

Grant

[t00fri]

I'd like to get my own copy of the Hipparcos data, but I'm not sure where to find it.

I've tracked down a catalogue at CDS, at:
http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/VizieR?-source=I/239

But while this gives me all the positions and parallaxes of the 118,000 or so that Hipparcos has catalogued, it doesn't appear to provide the spectral type and mass (which I also need).

Is there anywhere else that can provide this info in ASCII format? Or is the spectral type/mass all folded up in the B-V column (and if so, how do I get it out of there?!)?

Would Chris have a copy of this catalogue with all of that info that he used for Celestia?

So why don't you simply download the Hip catalogue via ftp?
http://vizier.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/ftp-index?I/239

Everything they measured is in there, including color.

Code: Select all

Byte-by-byte Description of file: hip_main.dat
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   Bytes Format Units   Label     Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
       1  A1    ---     Catalog   [H] Catalogue (H=Hipparcos)               (H0)
   9- 14  I6    ---     HIP       Identifier (HIP number)                   (H1)
      16  A1    ---     Proxy    *[HT] Proximity flag                       (H2)
  18- 28  A11   ---     RAhms     Right ascension in h m s, ICRS (J1991.25) (H3)
  30- 40  A11   ---     DEdms     Declination in deg ' ", ICRS (J1991.25)   (H4)
  42- 46  F5.2  mag     Vmag      ? Magnitude in Johnson V                  (H5)
      48  I1    ---     VarFlag  *[1,3]? Coarse variability flag            (H6)
      50  A1    ---   r_Vmag     *[GHT] Source of magnitude                 (H7)
  52- 63  F12.8 deg     RAdeg    *? alpha, degrees (ICRS, Epoch=J1991.25)   (H8)
  65- 76  F12.8 deg     DEdeg    *? delta, degrees (ICRS, Epoch=J1991.25)   (H9)
      78  A1    ---     AstroRef *[*+A-Z] Reference flag for astrometry    (H10)
  80- 86  F7.2  mas     Plx       ? Trigonometric parallax                 (H11)
  88- 95  F8.2 mas/yr   pmRA     *? Proper motion mu_alpha.cos(delta), ICRS(H12)
  97-104  F8.2 mas/yr   pmDE     *? Proper motion mu_delta, ICRS           (H13)
 106-111  F6.2  mas   e_RAdeg    *? Standard error in RA*cos(DEdeg)        (H14)
 113-118  F6.2  mas   e_DEdeg    *? Standard error in DE                   (H15)
 120-125  F6.2  mas   e_Plx       ? Standard error in Plx                  (H16)
 127-132  F6.2 mas/yr e_pmRA      ? Standard error in pmRA                 (H17)
 134-139  F6.2 mas/yr e_pmDE      ? Standard error in pmDE                 (H18)
 141-145  F5.2  ---     DE:RA     [-1/1]? Correlation, DE/RA*cos(delta)    (H19)
 147-151  F5.2  ---     Plx:RA    [-1/1]? Correlation, Plx/RA*cos(delta)   (H20)
 153-157  F5.2  ---     Plx:DE    [-1/1]? Correlation, Plx/DE              (H21)
 159-163  F5.2  ---     pmRA:RA   [-1/1]? Correlation, pmRA/RA*cos(delta)  (H22)
 165-169  F5.2  ---     pmRA:DE   [-1/1]? Correlation, pmRA/DE             (H23)
 171-175  F5.2  ---     pmRA:Plx  [-1/1]? Correlation, pmRA/Plx            (H24)
 177-181  F5.2  ---     pmDE:RA   [-1/1]? Correlation, pmDE/RA*cos(delta)  (H25)
 183-187  F5.2  ---     pmDE:DE   [-1/1]? Correlation, pmDE/DE             (H26)
 189-193  F5.2  ---     pmDE:Plx  [-1/1]? Correlation, pmDE/Plx            (H27)
 195-199  F5.2  ---     pmDE:pmRA [-1/1]? Correlation, pmDE/pmRA           (H28)
 201-203  I3    %       F1        ? Percentage of rejected data            (H29)
 205-209  F5.2  ---     F2       *? Goodness-of-fit parameter              (H30)
 211-216  I6    ---     ---       HIP number (repetition)                  (H31)
 218-223  F6.3  mag     BTmag     ? Mean BT magnitude                      (H32)
 225-229  F5.3  mag   e_BTmag     ? Standard error on BTmag                (H33)
 231-236  F6.3  mag     VTmag     ? Mean VT magnitude                      (H34)
 238-242  F5.3  mag   e_VTmag     ? Standard error on VTmag                (H35)
     244  A1    ---   m_BTmag    *[A-Z*-] Reference flag for BT and VTmag  (H36)
 246-251  F6.3  mag     B-V       ? Johnson B-V colour                     (H37)
 253-257  F5.3  mag   e_B-V       ? Standard error on B-V                  (H38)
     259  A1    ---   r_B-V       [GT] Source of B-V from Ground or Tycho  (H39)
 261-264  F4.2  mag     V-I       ? Colour index in Cousins' system        (H40)
 266-269  F4.2  mag   e_V-I       ? Standard error on V-I                  (H41)
     271  A1    ---   r_V-I      *[A-T] Source of V-I                      (H42)
     273  A1    ---     CombMag   [*] Flag for combined Vmag, B-V, V-I     (H43)
 275-281  F7.4  mag     Hpmag    *? Median magnitude in Hipparcos system   (H44)
 283-288  F6.4  mag   e_Hpmag    *? Standard error on Hpmag                (H45)
 290-294  F5.3  mag     Hpscat    ? Scatter on Hpmag                       (H46)
 296-298  I3    ---   o_Hpmag     ? Number of observations for Hpmag       (H47)
     300  A1    ---   m_Hpmag    *[A-Z*-] Reference flag for Hpmag         (H48)
 302-306  F5.2  mag     Hpmax     ? Hpmag at maximum (5th percentile)      (H49)
 308-312  F5.2  mag     HPmin     ? Hpmag at minimum (95th percentile)     (H50)
 314-320  F7.2  d       Period    ? Variability period (days)              (H51)
     322  A1    ---     HvarType *[CDMPRU]? variability type               (H52)
     324  A1    ---     moreVar  *[12] Additional data about variability   (H53)
     326  A1    ---     morePhoto [ABC] Light curve Annex                  (H54)
 328-337  A10   ---     CCDM      CCDM identifier                          (H55)
     339  A1    ---   n_CCDM     *[HIM] Historical status flag             (H56)
 341-342  I2    ---     Nsys      ? Number of entries with same CCDM       (H57)
 344-345  I2    ---     Ncomp     ? Number of components in this entry     (H58)
     347  A1    ---     MultFlag *[CGOVX] Double/Multiple Systems flag     (H59)
     349  A1    ---     Source   *[PFILS] Astrometric source flag          (H60)
     351  A1    ---     Qual     *[ABCDS] Solution quality                 (H61)
 353-354  A2    ---   m_HIP       Component identifiers                    (H62)
 356-358  I3    deg     theta     ? Position angle between components      (H63)
 360-366  F7.3  arcsec  rho       ? Angular separation between components  (H64)
 368-372  F5.3  arcsec  e_rho     ? Standard error on rho                  (H65)
 374-378  F5.2  mag     dHp       ? Magnitude difference of components     (H66)
 380-383  F4.2  mag   e_dHp       ? Standard error on dHp                  (H67)
     385  A1    ---     Survey    [S] Flag indicating a Survey Star        (H68)
     387  A1    ---     Chart    *[DG] Identification Chart                (H69)
     389  A1    ---     Notes    *[DGPWXYZ] Existence of notes             (H70)
 391-396  I6    ---     HD        [1/359083]? HD number <III/135>          (H71)
 398-407  A10   ---     BD        Bonner DM <I/119>, <I/122>               (H72)
 409-418  A10   ---     CoD       Cordoba Durchmusterung (DM) <I/114>      (H73)
 420-429  A10   ---     CPD       Cape Photographic DM <I/108>             (H74)
 431-434  F4.2  mag     (V-I)red  V-I used for reductions                  (H75)
 436-447  A12   ---     SpType    Spectral type                            (H76)
     449  A1    ---   r_SpType   *[1234GKSX]? Source of spectral type      (H77)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Bye Fridger

[granthutchison]

... for the data format of the main catalogue, look at the ReadMe file.

Now you don't need to ... Fridger has helpfully printed out the relevant section.

Grant

[Evil Dr Ganymede]

Aha. I evidently didn't spot that there... thanks!

So where do the star masses come from? Are those derived from the spectral types?

[Evil Dr Ganymede]

I'm a bit surprised that the HIP catalogue doesn't include dim M dwarfs like Wolf 359... is the Tycho catalogue any more complete in our neighbourhood, or does it just contain more distant bright stars?

[selden]

Oh, Evil One,

You need to read the documentation for the Hipparcos catalog so you aren't surprised

The stars chosen for the Hipparcos Input Catalog only went down to an apparent visual magnitude of 12.4. Supposedly it has "complete" coverage only to apparent visual magnitudes 7.3 or 9 depending on the position on the sky. The errors would have been too big for stars dimmer than that.

Data from the tracking telescopes were used for the Tycho catalog. They were not as sensitive as the main telescope. As a result, that catalog only goes down to an apparent blue magnitude of 10 or 11 depending on the position on the sky.

See http://astro.estec.esa.nl/Hipparcos/further_more.html for details.

[Evil Dr Ganymede]

Thanks for the link, Selden. I must guiltily admit that I usually only read the documentation if it's obvious that I'm not understanding something! Very naughty of me, probably .

So basically RECONS and other related searches are the best ones for finding those pesky M dwarfs, eh? (at least, the ones that are nearby).