Hi all,
today, I have checked in to SVN
my significant update on Celestia's binary star database.
Well, my new binary *.stc data files result altogether from about
1000 lines of completely rewritten Perl code. As I noted elsewhere, the code is downgraded a bit from my Celestia.Sci version (in preparation), which in addition includes
real-time downloading of all needed catalogs by means of a Perl ftp module...
Since this is a considerable rewrite, it "deserves" adequate testing efforts (beyond my own!).
Here are the most important news:
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
- Overlaps with Grant's 'nearstars.stc' have been cleanly eliminated by means of a unique and simple <= 25 ly splitting criterion
. Alleluia!
- Barycenter distances and coordinates are now from Andrew's revised HIP stars. (stars.txt and revised.stc in SVN)
- Complete and exact SIMBAD compatibility of nomenclature (including spaces etc) at the barycenter level has been implemented.
- I introduced a new "component parser" in my Perl scripts. It names the binary components, depending on whether SIMBAD denotes the barycenter name as:
<name> ==> <name> A <name> B
<name> A ==> <name> Aa <name> Ab
<name> B ==> <name> Ba <name> Bb
<name> AB ==> <name> A <name> B
etc.
This fancyness comes about, since some binaries in my listings are actually
subsystems of multiple stars with > 2 components...
Note: Syntax compatibility with SIMBAD cannot be maintained entirely at the
component level, since SIMBAD is not specializing on multiple systems, really.
- For each binary, there is now an extensive listing of important alternative names, ordered by decreasing "popularity"/mnemonics:
** popular starnames (<== starnames.dat) [e.g. Capella:Alhajot]
** Bayer-Flamsteed notation (if existing) [e.g. ALF Aur:13 Aur]
** extensions thereoff
** GJ xxx (Gliese & Jahreiss, if existing) [e.g. GJ 194]
** ADS xxx (Aitken, Double stars, if existing) [e.g. ADS 3841 AP]
** CCDM Jxxxxx+-yyyy (if existing. Almost synonymous with the WDS!)
[e.g. CCDM J05168+4559AP]
** HIP number
** HD number
** SAO number
- Both large, authoritative catalogs (WDS[2009], SB9[2009]) on visual and
spectroscopic double stars are scanned for information on the
spectral types and app.mags. of individual components!
- Redoublings among visualbins.stc and spectbins.stc are eliminated and spectbins data are added to visualbins in that case...
- As a last resort for lacking entries, I have replaced the arbitrary '?' and m_Vis = 5.0 assignments for the components in question by the respective data for the entire HIP system. I think this is altogether a more sensible approach, as discussed elsewhere...
- Systems that have been moved to 'nearstars' or would amount to a redoubling
have been commented out by the Perl script and respective comments are added in the
data files, also about necessary rough, "last resort" approximations.
Please do some testing, if you have a little spare time...
Special issues to watch out for in my updates:
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
- There may always be a "catch" in some Perl regular expression, possibly leading to a spurious (typo-like) inconsistency, notably from the new component parser.
- The barycenter nomenclature (including ALL alternative names) should be SIMBAD compatible without exception (including spaces etc)!
Here is the URL of SIMBAD, the universal astronomical database with "world impact".
http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/Click on "by identifier" and enter my barycenter names, to see whether SIMBAD recognizes all of them!!
In case of doubt as to the component allocations, you best start the
ALADIN Java applet located at the bottom of the SIMBAD page, and plot the neighborhood of the star in question at high zoom... A VERY neat tool...
Here is an example for MU1 Boo (at fairly LOW zoom
):
Thanks,
Fridger
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