There are several query programs; as a rule, each program can be
executed with the -help option to list the basic available options,
e.g.
- findcat allows to retrieve the existing catalogues in CDS Archive. Usage:
findcat [key... | catalogue_number]
keys are words to look for, e.g. RADIO, Author's name, etc...,
or catalogue number e.g. 8059 B/hst J/A+AS/94/519
- lscat
displays a summary of the files making up a catalogue.
Usage:
lscat catalogue_number [catalogue_number...]
- catcat
allows to copy a catalogue or a file extracted from a
catalogue, either in plain ascii, in tar format,
or in FITS format.
Usage:
catcat [-#] [-fits[.Z|.gz]|-tar[.Z|.gz] catalog[/file]
-#: Specify how many lines from each file (default
all) are to be printed.
-tar: Get catalogue file(s) in TAR format
compressed versions as tar.Z (Unix compress) or tar.gz (gzip)
-fits: Get catalogue file(s) as FITS tables
compressed versions as fits.Z (Unix compress) or fits.gz (gzip)
catalog: catalog designation, e.g.
8059, VIII/59, J/A+AS/94/519 ...
Note: The description file is named ReadMe,
which means that short explanations may be displayed with commands
catcat VIII/59/ReadMe
catcat J/A+AS/94/519/ReadMe
- findcfhtd and findcfhtw
allow to query the deep and wide CFHT-LS surveys
(T0007 release, see Cat. II/317)
- findcmc14 (Dec. 2006)
allows to query the Carlsberg Meridian Catalogue La Palma
number 14 (see Catalog I/304).
The catalogue gather about 100 million stars in the
declination range –30° to +50°.
- findcmc15 (Apr. 2014) (Cat. I/327)
The catalogue gather about 135million stars in
the declination range –400° to +50°.
- findigsl
allows to query the Initial Gaia Source List (see I/324):
- findgalex5a and findgalex5m
allow to query the GALEX-DR5 catalogues (see II/312):
the AIS (All-sky Imaging Survey, 65million sources),
or the MIS (Medium-depth Imaging Survey, 12.5million sources).
- findglimpse (May 2010)
allows to query Sptizer's GLIMPSE catalog
in the central regions
of our Galaxy.
The catalog gathers about 100 million sources
in the 4–8µm wavelength region (see II/293).
- findgsc allows to query (by coordinates or from the GSC number) the
Guide Star Catalogue (versions 1.1, 1.2 ot ACT —
see the VizieR GSC pages).
Usage:
findgsc [1.2] J2000-center [-r radius_arcmin] [-n max_found_stars]
findgsc [1.2] -g GSCfld[-number] [-n max_found_stars]
findgsc [1.2] - [options]
(centers in stdin)
Described by A. Preite-Martinez & F. Ochsenbein in "Handling &
Archiving Data from ground-based Telescopes", Trieste April 21-23,
1993, Eds. M. Albrecht & F. Pasian, ESO Conference and Workshop
Proceedings No. 50, p. 199
Example: find out GSC stars within 5' of centers specified
in file mycenters which contains:
12 34 12.5 -34 23 12
13 24 57.1 +61 12 34
just execute
findgsc - -r 5 < mycenters
Note: in order to avoid congestions,
the size of the file containing the
list of centers (mycenters) is limited to a maximum of
about 40Mbytes.
- findgsc2.2 (2001)
allows to query the GSC2.2 Catalog (Cat. I/271)
in a similar way; this version of the GSC2 includes about 500 million
sources.
- findgsc2.3 (2006)
allows to query the GSC2.3 Catalog (Cat. I/305)
in a similar way; this version of the GSC2 includes about 945 million
sources.
- findiphas2 ((2014), the Second Release of the
INT Photometric Hα Survey in the Northern Galactic Plane
(219million sources, Cat. II/321)
- finducac1 (2000)
allows to query the UCAC1 catalog
(First U.S. Naval Observatory CCD Astrograph Catalog, Zacharias
et al.) including about 27million sources (Cat. I/268)
- finducac2 (Oct. 2003)
allows to query the UCAC2 catalog
(Second U.S. Naval Observatory CCD Astrograph Catalog, Zacharias
et al.) including about 48million sources (Cat. I/289)
- finducac3 (Aug. 2009)
allows to query the UCAC3 catalog
(Third U.S. Naval Observatory CCD Astrograph Catalog, Zacharias
et al.) including about 100million sources (Cat. I/315)
- finducac4 (Sep. 2012)
allows to query the UCAC4 catalog
(Fourth U.S. Naval Observatory CCD Astrograph Catalog, Zacharias
et al.) including about 114million sources (Cat. I/322)
- findurat1 (Mar. 2015)
allows to query the URAT1 catalog
(Foutrh U.S. Naval Observatory CCD Astrograph Catalog, Zacharias
et al.) including about 228million sources for δ>-15°
(Cat. I/322)
- findpmm allows to query the USNO-A2.0 Catalog (Dave Monnett et al.,
see http://psyche.usno.navy.mil/pmm) which contains
over 500,000,000 sources compiled from the blue/red overlaps of
the detection lists generated from scans of POSS-I O and E,
SRC-J and ESO-R plates. Usage similar to findgsc.
Example: find out USNO-A2.0 stars within 3' of centers specified
in file mycenters which contains, ordered by increasing distances
from specified centers:
12 34 12.5 -34 23 12
13 24 57.1 +61 12 34
just execute
findpmm - -r 3 -sr < mycenters
Note: the program findpmm1 allows to query the
USNO-A1.0 catalogue
- findppmx (Dec. 2008)
allows to query the PPMX Catalog (Röeser et al.
2008A&A...488..401R, Catalog I/312), a catalogue of 18,088,919
stars containing astrometric and photometric information.
Its limiting magnitude is about 15.2, and includes reliable
proper motions.
- findppmxl (July 2010)
allows to query the PPMXL Catalog (Röeser et al.
2010AJ....139.2440R, Catalog I/317), a catalogue of around 900million
sources with positions and proper motions
aiming to be complete down to about V=20 full-sky.
- findusnob1 (Dec. 2002)
allows to query the USNO-B1.0 Catalog
(Dave Monnett et al., http://www.nofs.navy.mil/data/fchpix/;
see also Catalog I/284) which contains over 1 billion sources
compiled from the blue/red/infrared plates of several surveys
made over 50 years including the POSS-I and POSS-II.
Besides the position and proper motions, magnitudes and
star/galaxy extimators are provided.
Note that the format of the catalog has changed
slightly in November 2005, some edition problems were discovered
near the poles, see details in the "History" section of the
ReadMe file of catalog I/284;
we apologize for any inconvenience these changes might have
introduced.
- findkic (Sep. 2010)
allows to query the Kepler Input Catalogue (Cat. V/133)
about 13million stars
- find2mass (Jul. 2003)
allows to query the 2MASS Final Point Source Catalog
(http://www.ipac.caltech.edu/2mass/ ; see also Catalog II/246)
which contains 470,992,970 sources
covering virtually the while sky in the infrared bands JHK.
- findenis (Sep. 2005)
allows to query the DENIS 3rd Release
(http://cds.unistra.fr/denis.html; see also Catalog B/denis)
which contains 355,220,325 sources in the infrared bands IJK.
Older versions of DENIS can be queried with findenis1
(version 1), findenis2 (second version), etc.
- findsdss3 (Oct. 2005)
allows to query a subset of the SDSS 3rd release
(see Catalog II/259, and http://www.sdss.org).
- findsdss4 (Dec. 2006)
allows to query a subset of the SDSS 4th release
(see Catalog II/267, and http://www.sdss.org).
- findsdss5 (Feb. 2007)
allows to query a subset of the SDSS 5th release
(see Catalog II/276, and http://www.sdss.org).
- findsdss6 (Feb. 2008)
allows to query a subset of the SDSS 6th release
(see Catalog II/282, and http://www.sdss.org).
- findsdss7 (Jun. 2009)
allows to query a subset of the SDSS 7th release
(see Catalog II/294, and http://www.sdss.org).
- findsdss8 (Feb. 2012)
allows to query a subset of the SDSS 8th release
(see Catalog II/306, and http://www.sdss.org).
Can be queried by Jname, objID, plate-mjd-fiber,
run-rerun-camcol-field-object.
- findsdss9 (Feb. 2013)
allows to query a subset of the SDSS 9th release
(see Catalog V/139, and http://www.sdss.org).
Can be queried by Jname, objID, plate-mjd-fiber,
run-rerun-camcol-field-object.
- findnomad1 (Jul. 2006)
allows to query the NOMAD1 catalog.
(see Catalog I/297, and http://www.nofs.navy.mil/nomad/).
The catalog merges USNO-B1, UCAC2, Tycho-2, 2MASS and contains
over 1.1billion sources. Efficient queries available from
position, magnitudes and colors.
- findspm4 allows to query the astrometric
Yale/San Juan Southern Proper Motion Catalog #4
( 103million sources, see I/320)
- findviking1 (Oct. 2014)
VISTA Kilo-degree Infrared Galaxy Survey Data Release 1
( 15million sources, Cat. II/329)
- findwise (2014) allows to query the AllWISE
release ( 748million sources, Cat. II/328) of the
Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer
(bands centered around 3.35, 4.6, 11.6 and 22.1µm;
more details on
http://wise2.ipac.caltech.edu/docs/release/allsky/expsup/)
Previous (2012) versions are findwise0 (all
sky, 564million sources) and findwisep (preliminary
catalogue).
- UKIDSS catalogs:
- findgps6: Galactic Plane Survey Release 6
( 558million sources, II/316)
- finddsx9: Deep Extragalactic Survey Release 9
( 3million sources, II/319)
- findgcs9: Galactic Clusters Survey Release 9
( 54million sources, II/319)
- findlas9: Large Area Survey Release Release 9
( 82million sources, II/319)
- older UKIDSS Release 8:
finddsx8, findgcs8, and finddsx8
- catalogs related to the Magellanic Clouds (Mar. 2012):
- findmc2: Master Catalogue towards the
Magellanic Clouds, Delmotte et al., Cat. IV/33
- findsage, from the Spitzer results
(Cat. II/305)
- findmc_irsf: IRSF Magellanic Clouds
Point Source Catalog, Kato et al., Cat. II/288
- find_cats (Jan. 2008) is
a program to query the large surveys (GSC, UCAC, USNO, 2MASS, SDSS ...)
from a list of positions. For each position given, find_cats
returns the results from one or several of the large surveys.
To minimize the number of bytes transferred on the network,
the program find_cats.gz returns gzipped (compressed) output.
Example: find_cats my_file
-r 0.5 GSC1.2 UCAC2: -r 0.3 2MASS: -lmJ 6,11
to query around the positions (stored in the file my_file)
on catalogues:
- GSC1.2 within a target radius of 0.5arcmin
- UCAC2 within a target radius of 0.3mrcmin
- 2MASS within a target radius of 0.5arcmin and J mag
in range 6-11.
The rule is that, when a catalog is followed by a colon (:),
the arguments following the catalog apply only to that catalog.
- vizquery (Sep. 2003)
a generic program to query VizieR (or any mirror) and get the
results in one of the various available formats:
ascii, HTML, TSV, XML, VOTable, FITS... A more complete
description can be cound in the vizquery page.
- sesame (Nov. 2008)
supplies details about astronomical sources (outside the
Solar System). It operates by querying
Simbad, NED , and VizieR
databases – more details on the sesame documentation
- simref allows to retrieve bibliographical references
(authors & title) from SIMBAD data-base.
Usage:
simref bibcode
(Note that the bibcode need not to be complete, full volumes
are listed when the page numbers are omitted.
The year is not required for the most important journals)
- simbib allows to retrieve bibliographical references
from author's names or words from title.
Usage:
simbib [minimal_year] word(s)...
Example: simbib 1990 white dwarf X-ray
retrieves the references simce 1990 dealing about white dwarfs
in X-ray domain.
- abibcode
adds, to an input file assumed to contain LaTeX references
in the form
\bibitem{label} ...
into one of the two macros:
\simOK{bibcode} (reference known in Simbad), or
\NOsim{text} (not existing in SIMBAD)
