Patrick, My planetarium software does have Hipparcos and part of the SAO catalog but it was missing some of the ones Kurt had mentioned. I know my software has the ability to upload databases so I will go look for the SAO one or I can also post a message on their list. Thanks for watching out for me. I need good direction now and then. Speaking of catalogs sometimes I wish there was one standard catalog but I can see that will never happen. I grew up in astronomy on the Messier list and when someone uses the NGC that is also in the Messier list I won’t recognize the NGC. However there are a lot of NGC numbers I do recognize on sight. I guess some objects are better known by one catalog number than another. I was just wondering, since you have had many years of experience in this business, how do you decide what catalog number to use? Jim --- On Mon, 3/2/09, Patrick Wiggins <paw@wirelessbeehive.com> wrote: From: Patrick Wiggins <paw@wirelessbeehive.com> Subject: [Utah-astronomy] Databases (Was: Colorful Doubles - Mon to Cnc) To: "Utah Astronomy" <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Date: Monday, March 2, 2009, 11:44 PM Hi Jim, Unless it's shareware it's a bit odd that it does not have the SAO or Hipparcos catalogs since they are a couple of the "biggies". Both of the programs I use allow one to upload different databases that did not come with the program. Can you add new databases to yours? patrick On 02 Mar 2009, at 13:01, Jim Gibson wrote:
Kurt, Thanks for the offer, but I can convert to HIP. It just makes me mad that my planetarium software doesn’t have SAO.
Jim
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