SCAR -- Star catalogue database system

[SUN/70, 106]

The Starlink Catalogue Access and Reporting system is a relational database management system. It was designed principally for extracting information from astronomical catalogues, but it can be used to process any data stored in relational form. A large number of catalogues are available, including the IRAS catalogues. For general database requirements, REXEC may be preferable. SCAR can perform the following functions:

• Extract data from a catalogue using selection criteria.
• Manipulate data using various statistical and plotting routines.
• Output data from a catalogue.
• Put a new catalogue into the database.
• Search catalogues and generate reports on what has been found.
• Sort, merge, join, and difference catalogues.
• Plot sources in a gnomonic (tangent plane) or Aitoff (equal area) projection.
• Analyse the fields of a catalogue by scatterplot and histogram.
• Calculate new fields.

A distinctive feature of SCAR is the use of index files which you can create and which contain pointers to rows in one or more catalogues. This is a compact and flexible method of accessing catalogues; for example, a very large catalogue may be physically ordered by declination, but you can create an index giving access to it ordered by flux.

To run SCAR:

from ICL:

   $ SCARSTART
   .
   ICL> HELP SCAR
   ICL> SCAR
   ICL> SCAR_HELP  (for help on SCAR)
   ICL> CAR_HELP   (for help on CAR commands)
   ICL> CAT_HELP   (for help on catalogues)
   ICL> (any SCAR commands)

from DCL:

   $ SCARSTART
   $ (any SCAR commands)

Demonstration:

A script is available which demonstrates some of the features of SCAR. It can be invoked by typing:

   ICL> LOAD SCAR_DOC_DIR:SCAR_SCRIPT

It is suggested that you run this in an empty directory so that you can identify the files which have been created.