Local copies

Versions of the following catalogues are available which are fully compatible with CURSA. You can obtain a local copy, find the objects in a given region of sky with catselect (see Section ), and then plot a finding chart.

• The Catalogue of Positions and Proper Motions (PPM) by S. Röser and U. Bastian[23,2]. The PPM is similar in scale and scope to the SAO catalogue, but more modern and accurate. A CURSA-compatible version is available and can be obtained by ftp (see Section ). This version covers both hemispheres.

• The Hipparcos and Tycho catalogues. These catalogues, compiled from observations made with the Hipparcos astrometric satellite, contain extremely accurate coordinates. They are available as ASCII files on CD-ROM. Programs to reformat the files into CURSA-compatible catalogues can be obtained by ftp (see Section ).

• Regions of the Hubble Space Telescope Guide Star Catalog (GSC). CURSA application catgscin can be used to reformat a GSC region into a CURSA-compatible target list (see Section ).