This section describes the data sources used in Our Galaxy.
The basic star data was extracted from the SIMBAD online database. A script was used to download a list of stars brighter than 6th magnitude: retrieving catalog names, RA/Dec, visual magnitude, spectral type and parallax (for distance).
Data was extracted from the SIMBAD online database. A script was used to download OB associations: retrieving catalog names, RA/Dec, and distance.
Size information for the associations was taken from:
Catalog of Luminous Stars in Associations and Clusters. Humphreys R.M., Blaha C., McElroy D.B.
<Univ. of Minnesota, unpublished (1984)>
Open cluster information was taken from:
Optically visible open clusters and Candidates
(Dias+ 2002-2015).
The above catalog doesn’t contain information on visual magnitude. A SIMBAD search was done to find clusters with their visual magnitude listed and these results were merged with the above catalog data.
The basic data for diffuse nebulae was taken from Sky Catalog 2000 by Sky Publishing. A number of distances were updated using data from the open clusters associated with the nebulosity.
Data was extracted from the SIMBAD online database. A script was used to download planetary nebulae: retrieving names, RA/Dec, size, visual magnitude, and distance.
Some visual magnitudes in SIMBAD for large planetary nebulae were suspect. I corrected those magnitudes using data from:
An Atlas of the Universe (http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com).
The bulk of the globular cluster data was taken from William E. Harris’s data at:
https://physwww.mcmaster.ca/~harris/mwgc.dat.
This file does not have data on the apparent size of the clusters. I manually added this size data using tables in the book: Star Clusters by Archinal & Hynes
The data for galaxies was taken from:
Updated Nearby Galaxy Catalog
(Karachentsev+, 2013)
This catalog has data on 869 nearby galaxies having individual distance estimates within 11Mpc or corrected radial velocities less than 600km/s.
In all cases, the data above was supplemented by adding common names of objects. This common name data was based upon a list from Sky Catalogue 2000.0, with supplementation of missing names.
Additional star names were taken from a list of IAU star names found at: https://www.iau.org/public/themes/naming_stars/
Most astronomical catalogs do not list the constellation an object appears in when viewed from Earth. To determine this information, data from:
http://vizier.u-strasbg.fr/vizier/VizieR/constellations.htx was used to create 88 polygonal constellation boundaries. The object’s RA/Dec was then used to check which polygon it fell within.