67 replies to this topic

[nic35]

John, does this in some way allow us to invoke the hyperleda catalog entries and field data to appear as annotations to our SC images? If we could add our own objects of study to hyperleda and then pull the annotations onto our sky images, this could be a big help in locating variable stars and exoplanet stars that don’t respond to search queries. 
 

When first going after variables or exoplanet stars, I spend a lot of time cross- comparing my exposure test images with Aladdin images, looking for star patterns that help me locate the target in often, very crowded star field. It would be ideal to be able to enter the target name, RA, Dec into some database that SC reads and have the object location identified by annotation in Sharpcap. Is this possible with hyperleda?
 

Gary

Gary

 

I'm completely dumb about this stuff.  All I know is how to click on buttons ! 

 

If you have ASTAP, you can launch it as a stand alone app, open an image ( best to do with 16 bit FITS images) and have it plate solve (make sure to set the height of the FOV to Auto).  If you've downloaded the Hyperleda data base from the ASTAP home page, you can invoke the normal annotation, which in the image below would show you only the Messier obects and one other NGC object.  But when you invoke the Hyperleda   data set, you get the many, many more yellow annotations.  They appear to be all from the PGC catalog, at least in this image.

 

My earlier post may have been misleading - although hyperleda has 5.3 million objects, the ASTAP extract of it contains (only ?) 2.190 million objects.  

 

I've no clue as to how this might be integrated into SC for near-real-time use. 

 

[BrentKnight]

The PGC catalogue I prepared in 2021 has 3.44 million galaxies, of which 842466 are under mag 18.

 

Since there is actually a non-trivial amount of work involved in producing the catalogue (from formulating the appropriate SQL query to getting the data into a useful form) I'm quite happy to share it or any subset. Just specify the columns and other criteria. Here's a fragment of the under-18 set

 

 

leda.png

From the SharpCap forum:

 

[Cey42]

I have been collecting catalog data over the last year that I use for my observation software. I converted some of that data into SharpCap catalog format.

 

 

I have ARP, HCG and PGC catalogs to share. None of these have PosAngle data. For PGC, I used magnitude less than 17. This gives ~48,000 entries.

 

 

I would advice not turning on the PGC catalog in SharpCap until you want it. The reason is that it might 'overwrite' NGC/IC numbers for the same object. I believe SharpCap uses magnitude to decide which catalog name to use when there are multiple in the same location. I am sure various catalogs do not agree on magnitude and I don't know how SharpCap breaks ties.

 

 

Enjoy.

 ARP.csv   16.37KB   56 downloads

 HCG.csv   6.75KB   47 downloads

 

PGC is too big to upload here, so I put it on a domain I own

www.aquasera.com/cn/PGC.csv

 

[MartinMeredith]

From the SharpCap forum:

 

SharpCap Annotation.jpg

I've placed the PGC data in these files

 

up to mag 15 (17231 galaxies) (0.43M zip)

to mag 16 (66452) (1.5M)

to mag 17 (245774) (4.9M)

to mag 18 (773876) (14.3M)

 

[edit: you don't need more than one of these; eg mag 17 includes everything in mag 16 etc]

 

I don't have Windows so I can't test them myself; maybe someone can give them a whirl?

 

Notes

 

0. Cey42's files have RA/Dec in sexagesimal format while Brent's screenshot suggests that they need to be in decimal format. I've followed the screenshot instructions but I can produce the sexagesimal format if it turns out to be necessary.

 

1. I've removed all galaxies that don't have a B or V magnitude (e.g. many have K-band mags of 12-14 but are actually very faint in the B or V band)

 

2. The 'Type' column includes more specific galaxy classes where available; if this is too much detail it can be removed

 

3. The Ra and Dec are provided to 6 decimal places; this can be increased or reduced if necessary.

 

4. The principal name is in the IDs column, and alternative names are in the Names column

Edited by MartinMeredith, 29 January 2022 - 11:35 AM.

[alphatripleplus]

You guys are great doing this. I spent a little time recently getting the PGC catalog, and converted the co-ords from sexagesimal to decimal format for my use. 

[BrentKnight]

Thanks very much Cey and Martin!

[roelb]

From me also thanks Cey and Martin for those object csv files.

I have tested it with the latest SharpCap V.4.0.8629.

Windows 11.

All worked fine!

[alphatripleplus]

One other catalog that might be of interest for SharpCap (or other uses) is the complete list of Abell galaxy clusters, which I think includes over 4,000 clusters. I was able to find a catalog with about 1,000 of them that have measured redshifts,  but I haven't organised a catalog with all 4,000 entries. 

 

It should be a small file with only 4,000 entries if anyone has it.

 

Edit: I see that the catalog seems to be sorted into 4 pieces here.

[MartinMeredith]

You already have that catalogue  Search for ACO.csv and you'll find it (because it is bundled with Jocular). The CSV file can be imported into Excel (or whatever) and the relevant columns renamed to get it into the required format. Note that the RAs are in degrees ie 0-360 and need to be divided by 15 to convert into the hour format that SC needs.

 

There are 5250 members if you also include the Southern Abells. I don't have the redshift data but I do have their distance class (0-6). The redshift data is out there for some of the clusters.

 

BTW You can also export this or any other catalogue, or any subselection from a catalogue (e.g. all below a given mag) as a CSV from within Jocular by clicking on 'dso', typing Abell into Name and GG in object type (OT), and clicking export. The resulting file in is your joculardata/exports directory.

 

I could add an export to Sharpcap option I guess.

[meegja]

I've placed the PGC data in these files

I have been collecting catalog data over the last year that I use for my observation software. I converted some of that data into SharpCap catalog format.

 

 

I have ARP, HCG and PGC catalogs to share. None of these have PosAngle data. For PGC, I used magnitude less than 17. This gives ~48,000 entries.

Thanks both so much! For my 8" 2032mm this is so useful!  

[alphatripleplus]

You already have that catalogue  Search for ACO.csv and you'll find it (because it is bundled with Jocular). The CSV file can be imported into Excel (or whatever) and the relevant columns renamed to get it into the required format. Note that the RAs are in degrees ie 0-360 and need to be divided by 15 to convert into the hour format that SC needs.

 

 

I'll have to look again, but I could not find ACO.csv on my drive. Is there a specific location I should check ?(The catalogues subdirectory of Jocular data is empty as I have not downloaded any of the additional catalogs).

[herseycart]

This is an awesome feature.  I have actually spent the last hour or so replaying some of my EAA session in SharpCap and looking at some of the Deep Sky Annotations.  

 

I loaded up MartinMeredith's PGC18 catalog data and as others have reported it works great with SharpCap.  Lots of faint fuzzies to be found.

 

Would be really nice if there was a way to save the image with the annotations.  I know you can just screenshot it, but would be neat to have an option to save with annotation.

 

Really good stuff!!! Thanks!

Edited by herseycart, 29 January 2022 - 02:37 PM.

[MartinMeredith]

I'll have to look again, but I could not find ACO.csv on my drive. Is there a specific location I should check ?(The catalogues subdirectory of Jocular data is empty a I have not downloaded any of the additional catalogs).

Catalogues are split into those that are shipped with the tool and those you might download for deep annotation. ACO.csv is one of the shipped ones, so it lives in jocular\dsos (but you need to find where jocular was installed)

 

You can also get it directly from the Jocular github site -- probably easier that way

[MartinMeredith]

This is an awesome feature.  I have actually spent the last hour or so replaying some of my EAA session in SharpCap and looking at some of the Deep Sky Annotations.  

 

I loaded up MartinMeredith's PGC18 catalog data and as others have reported it works great with SharpCap.  Lots of faint fuzzies to be found.

 

Would be really nice if there was a way to save the image with the annotations.  I know you can just screenshot it, but would be neat to have an option to save with annotation.

 

Really good stuff!!! Thanks!

Would love to see a picture! Took a while to figure out whether the position angle was correct...

[steveincolo]

Catalogues are split into those that are shipped with the tool and those you might download for deep annotation. ACO.csv is one of the shipped ones, so it lives in jocular\dsos (but you need to find where jocular was installed)

 

You can also get it directly from the Jocular github site -- probably easier that 

Errol, if you want to find out where Jocular was installed:

 

% pip show jocular

[alphatripleplus]

Catalogues are split into those that are shipped with the tool and those you might download for deep annotation. ACO.csv is one of the shipped ones, so it lives in jocular\dsos (but you need to find where jocular was installed)

 

You can also get it directly from the Jocular github site -- probably easier that way

Thanks, Martin, I just found it before reading your comment.

 

It is indeed in the following directory (on 32 bit windows) under Python :  Lib\site-packages\jocular\dsos

 

I had already visited the jocular directory before, but not paid attention to the sub directories. Funny that when I use windows search it does not come up.

[Tfer]

This is an awesome feature.  I have actually spent the last hour or so replaying some of my EAA session in SharpCap and looking at some of the Deep Sky Annotations.  

 

I loaded up MartinMeredith's PGC18 catalog data and as others have reported it works great with SharpCap.  Lots of faint fuzzies to be found.

 

Would be really nice if there was a way to save the image with the annotations.  I know you can just screenshot it, but would be neat to have an option to save with annotation.

 

Really good stuff!!! Thanks!

The newest update, released this week, has that ability.

[Cey42]

Martin thanks for sharing your PGC files that have PosAngle in them. I will them out.

 

 

The newer versions of SharpCap now accept lots of different formats for RA/Dec. From post 26 on this page

 

I have code that will read co-ordinates in the following formats

05 35 17.3 -05 23 28
05 32 49.8 -05 25 21
RA 5h 35m 17s | Dec -5° 23′ 28″
5h 35m 17s -5° 23′ 28″
5h35m17.39s/Dec-5°23'28.24"
RA= 5h 35.4m, Dec= -05° 27´
RA: 05h 35m 24.0s Dec: -05°27'00"
5h RA, -5° DEC
RA 05h 35.4m |Dec. -05° 27″
RA 05h 35.4m, dec. –05º 27’
{RA=05:35:16,Dec=-05:23:28}
5.58805 -5.391
(05:35:20.556, -05:18:32.593)
(83.84, -5.309)

 

 

I also have about 600 entries from the PK Catalog of planetary nebula if there is interest in that.

[Tfer]

Martin thanks for sharing your PGC files that have PosAngle in them. I will them out.

 

 

The newer versions of SharpCap now accept lots of different formats for RA/Dec. From post 26 on this page

 

 

 

I also have about 600 entries from the PK Catalog of planetary nebula if there is interest in that.

Love PNs!  I'm about to start adding the Hickson and Arp catalogs as well.  Robin hit this one out of the park.

 

Thanks for adding to its usefulness.

[mikenoname]

Echoing the thanks to Martin and Cey for the CSV files!

Edited by mikenoname, 29 January 2022 - 04:20 PM.

[herseycart]

The newest update, released this week, has that ability.

Yes it does! Also dig the ability to turn catalogs on or off. Very nice!

Edited by herseycart, 29 January 2022 - 06:24 PM.

[herseycart]

Would love to see a picture! Took a while to figure out whether the position angle was correct...

Here you go.  I captured this on 01/14/2022.  Replayed and annotated today.

 

 

I could see UGC 6923 in the image, but was unable positively ID it.  SharpCap and your pgc18 csv took care of that

Edited by herseycart, 29 January 2022 - 06:28 PM.

[HxPI]

Does this work in live view?

[Tfer]

After a plate solve.

[BrentKnight]

Sure does...but you usually need to do a plate solve before it can place the annotations (plate solve only - no sync).