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Date: 19 Sep 2007 10:52:41
From:
Subject: Is there some website that will allow me to plot star maps with labelled magnitudes?
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I am interested in observing some of the many Hamburg Quasar Survey
cataclysmic variables for which no AAVSO chart (or any other, as best
as I can tell) has been created. Is there some place on the internet
where I can create such charts? I would need a limiting magnitude down
to about 15.0 or so.
The recent outburst of HS2331+3905 (=V455 Andromedae) to 8th magnitude
suggests that monitoring of these objects might be rewarding, but the
lack of available comparison star charts is surprising, and a real
hindrance!
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Date: 20 Sep 2007 05:31:24
From:
Subject: Re: Is there some website that will allow me to plot star maps with labelled magnitudes?
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On Sep 19, 1:52 pm, alliso...@IGNmail.com wrote:
> I am interested in observing some of the many Hamburg
> Quasar Survey cataclysmic variables for which no AAVSO
> chart (or any other, as best as I can tell) has been
> created. Is there some place on the internet
> where I can create such charts? I would need a
> limiting magnitude down to about 15.0 or so.
No such software is possible. The deepest catalog with genuinely
reliable magnitudes is Tycho-2, which is more or less complete only
down to about mag 11.5.
The best catalog currently available is USNO-B1, which goes plenty
deep, but only promises photometry accurate to +-0.3 mag -- not very
impressive.
There are several software packages that can import the USNO catalogs
and print maps from them.
- Tony Flanders
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Date: 20 Sep 2007 03:18:02
From: Margo Schulter
Subject: Re: Is there some website that will allow me to plot star maps with labelled magnitudes?
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allisonki@ignmail.com wrote:
> I am interested in observing some of the many Hamburg Quasar Survey
> cataclysmic variables for which no AAVSO chart (or any other, as best
> as I can tell) has been created. Is there some place on the internet
> where I can create such charts? I would need a limiting magnitude down
> to about 15.0 or so.
Hi, there, and one free program that will do this is fchart, which uses
the tycho2 database and has an option to set the limiting magnitude
separately for stars and deep sky objects.
<http://www.astro.rug.nl/~brentjen/fchart.html >
Just for fun, I generated a chart of M75 with a limiting stellar
magnitude of 15.0 and a 2.03-degree field (the FOV for one of my
eyepieces) with this command line:
fchart m75 -s 15.0 -f 2.03
You can chart a field of any desired size in degrees around any object
named in the databases (Messier, NGC/IC, and SAC), or pick any arbitrary
RA and dec as the center point. I wrote a review posted here earlier
this summer.
As with star atlases, stellar magnitudes are identified by circles of
different sizes, with a key at the bottom of a chart.
> The recent outburst of HS2331+3905 (=V455 Andromedae) to 8th magnitude
> suggests that monitoring of these objects might be rewarding, but the
> lack of available comparison star charts is surprising, and a real
> hindrance!
Since printed star atlases have a limit around magnitude 11, some
software solution is obvious. People like a variety of solutions;
for text-based Linux, I find fchart a really neat program.
Most appreciatively,
Margo Schulter
mschulter@calweb.com
Lat. 38.566 Long. -121.430
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Date: 19 Sep 2007 23:01:59
From: Michael Asherman
Subject: Re: Is there some website that will allow me to plot star maps with labelled magnitudes?
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<allisonki@IGNmail.com > wrote in message
news:1190224361.512328.253730@y42g2000hsy.googlegroups.com...
>I am interested in observing some of the many Hamburg Quasar Survey
> cataclysmic variables for which no AAVSO chart (or any other, as best
> as I can tell) has been created. Is there some place on the internet
> where I can create such charts? I would need a limiting magnitude down
> to about 15.0 or so.
>
> The recent outburst of HS2331+3905 (=V455 Andromedae) to 8th magnitude
> suggests that monitoring of these objects might be rewarding, but the
> lack of available comparison star charts is surprising, and a real
> hindrance!
>
John Walker's "Your Sky" may be helpful. It uses the Smithsonian
Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) Star Catalog of more than 258,000 stars with
a limiting magnitude of approximately 9.5.
http://www.fourmilab.ch/yoursky/
Mike
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Date: 19 Sep 2007 14:33:41
From: canopus56
Subject: Re: Is there some website that will allow me to plot star maps with labelled magnitudes?
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On Sep 19, 11:52 am, alliso...@IGNmail.com wrote:
> I am interested in observing some of the many Hamburg Quasar Survey
> cataclysmic variables for which no AAVSO chart (or any other, as best
> as I can tell) has been created. Is there some place on the internet
> where I can create such charts? I would need a limiting magnitude down
> to about 15.0 or so.
Normally, this is done with a generic laptop planetarium program that
has the LEONES and abbreviated USNO B2.0 catalogues installed, or with
speciality photometry software like MPO Canopus. The reduced USNO
catalogue (on three CDs) generally has to be obtained through an
advanced imaging amateur in your local club. Alternatively, follow
the AAVSO yahoo newsgroup. Typically for breaking news objects, a
quick photometry list will be posted by a member of the AAVSO
newsgroup list.
Using Simbad's Aladin applet, you can generate an image and table of
stars in a selected region, but not an image over-plotted with
magnitudes.
http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/sim-fid
Enter the object name or coordinates in the Simbad query screen.
V* V455 And
23 34 01.55 +39 21 42.9
When the object information is displayed, load the full Aladin Java
Applet. If the applet cannot find the object name, there is an box to
paste in the coordinates - see the "Position" box. For V455 And, you
will have to paste in the coordinates.
Once the Aladin image and object map layer displays, simply left-click
drag a box region around the object of interest. In the lower table
box, the applet will display red, green and blue photometry
information on all the objects in the selected region.
The "Save" button exports a fits image of the display and a text table
of all the objects in the region of interest in the display.
The number of objects in the display can be narrowed considerably to
the relevant magnitude by first applying a magnitude filter. The
option sequence - "filter" button, "advanced filter" option,
"predefined filters" pull down, and "magnitude cut" - will allow you
to set a magnitude cut limit of 13 to 15 mags in the red band.
If you do not get enough stars using a mag 13 cut-off, use the 1/4
Zoom option to get a bigger field of view.
To generate a clean display it may be necessary to delete old
magnitude cut layers. Right click a layer on the right-hand side of
the Aladin display. Select "delete" to remove it.
The filter button options also appears to have a facility to plot
magnitudes next to the reduced set of stars on the image. I have not
been able to make that option work.
The AAVSO also has a beta test chart generator. It produces the
charts using coordinates, but I have not been able to get it to
produce a photometry table of stars.
http://www.aavso.org/observing/charts/vsp/
- Canopus56
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Date: 19 Sep 2007 19:28:59
From: Michael Gorelick
Subject: Re: Is there some website that will allow me to plot star maps with labelled magnitudes?
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On Sep 19, 1:52 pm, alliso...@IGNmail.com wrote:
> I am interested in observing some of the many Hamburg Quasar Survey
> cataclysmic variables for which no AAVSO chart (or any other, as best
> as I can tell) has been created. Is there some place on the internet
> where I can create such charts? I would need a limiting magnitude down
> to about 15.0 or so.
>
> The recent outburst of HS2331+3905 (=V455 Andromedae) to 8th magnitude
> suggests that monitoring of these objects might be rewarding, but the
> lack of available comparison star charts is surprising, and a real
> hindrance!
http://skyview.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/query.pl <-- this might be some
help to you... although it doesn't limit based on magnitude
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