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Astronomy Charts and Catalogs
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This page links to reference information supporting amateur astronomy observation: sky charts (both online-interactive and downloadable freeware), catalogs of deep sky objects, solar system viewers, encyclopedias and glossaries about astronomy.

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Sky Charts


Basic planetarium tools

  • Astro Viewer: [e] www.astroviewer.com
    Very handy online planisphere (Java applet). The star catalog of AstroViewer contains the 1,423 brightest fixed stars and Messier objects up to magnitude 5. Sun, moon and planets are shown as well.
     
  • Your Sky (John Walker, Fourmilab): [e] www.fourmilab.ch/yoursky/
    Another online planisphere; also featuring horizon views and virtual telescope views.

Advanced planetarium software

  • Touring the Universe through Binoculars (Dean Williams & Phil Harrington): [e]www.philharrington.net/tuba.htm
    Designed specifically as companion software to Phil Harrington's book "Touring the Universe through Binoculars", though surely also useful for telescope users.
    Contains stars down to mag 11 and 1,100 deep-sky objects. With plenty of handy options, including object identification plus basic data, and including printing of charts.
    Compact (just 6 MB), fast, and intuitive in use. Windows-compatible (from 95 up to Vista).
     
  • Cartes du Ciel / Sky Charts (Patrick Chevalley): Free program to draw sky charts, for Windows, Linux or Mac OS X.
    This program enables you to draw sky charts, making use of the data in 16 catalogs of stars and nebulae. In addition the position of planets, asteroids and comets are shown. The purpose of this program is to prepare different sky maps for a particular observation. A large number of parameters help you to choose specifically or automatically which catalogs to use, the colour and the dimension of stars and nebulae, the representation of planets, the display of labels and coordinate grids, the superposition of pictures, the condition of visibility and more.
     
  • Computer Aided Astronomy (C2A): [e|f] astrosurf.com/c2a/english/
    C2A (Computer Aided Astronomy), for Windows, is an easy-to-use general-purpose planetarium software, it can also be used to prepare small-field observations as well as astrometry and photometry, and is able to access the following catalogues: SAO (provided with the program distribution), Guide Star, Tycho-2, USNO-SA1.0, USNO-A2.0, USNO-B1.0, UCAC1 and UCAC2.
     
  • Stellarium: [e] www.stellarium.org
    Another popular, powerful and free planetarium software. For Windows, Linux or Mac OS X.
     
  • KStars: [e] edu.kde.org/kstars/
    Planetarium software shipped with the (Linux) KDE Edutainment Project.
     
  • Das Planetarium 1900-2100: [d] www.astroexcel.de
    German-language planetarium software.
     
  • CNebulaX: [e] www.uv.es/jrtorres/CNebulaX.htm
    Deep sky atlas, library, night planner and companion for the deep sky observer.
    The main aim is the construction of powerful sky maps and lists of deep sky objects, to be studied in our deep sky observing sessions. It also implements a library, telescope control, ephemerid facilities, prediction of visibility, overlaying facilities, annotations, and more auxiliary tools for the deep sky observer.

Ephemeris software

  • XEphem: [e] www.clearskyinstitute.com/xephem/
    Scientific-grade interactive astronomical ephemeris software package for UNIX-like systems, including: Linux, FreeBSD, MacOS X, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, OpenVMS; can also be used under MS Windows using VMWare, MKS Toolkit or Cygwin.
    Written in C, X11 and Motif with full source code freely available. To build a running program you need ANSI C, X11 and Motif development libraries, a POSIX operating system and the skills to build such programs.
     
  • PyEphem: [e] rhodesmill.org/pyephem/
    Ephemeris calculations for the Python programming language.
    The numerical routines that lie behind PyEphem are those from XEphem (see above).

Star and deep-sky atlases

  • The Mag-7 Star Atlas Project (Andrew Johnson): [e] www.cloudynights.com/item.php?item_id=1052
    A free, downloadable set of high-quality star charts plotting stars down to Magnitude 7.25. Covers the whole sky in twenty charts (11" x 8.5") in pdf format, capable of being printed at reasonable resolutions on the average home printer. Comes in two versions: color for desk use and B/W (black stars on white background) for field use.
     
  • Star Atlases (epoch 2000.0) in Modified Transverse Mercator Projection (Toshimi Taki):
    Two free, downloadable sets of star charts plotting stars down to Magnitude 6.5 resp. 8.5. Cover the whole sky in pdf format charts, capable of being printed on the average home printer. Feature black stars on white background.
    • 6.5 Magnitude Star Atlas (12 A3 charts): [e] www.asahi-net.or.jp/~zs3t-tk/atlas/atlas.htm
      This atlas was introduced in Sky & Telescope, Jun 2005, p.103. With its 6.5 limiting magnitude and 500+ deep-sky objects, this atlas compares well to "Norton's Star Atlas (epoch 1950)".
    • 8.5 Magnitude Star Atlas (146 A4 charts): [e] www.asahi-net.or.jp/~zs3t-tk/atlas_85/atlas_85.htm
      Includes deep-sky object lists per chart. With its 88.000+ stars and 2.900+ deep-sky objects, this atlas compares well to the "Sky Atlas 2000.0 Second Ed."

     
  • The TriAtlas Project: three (9, 11 and 13 magnitude) deep sky atlases (José R. Torres): [e] www.uv.es/jrtorres/triatlas.html
    A set of three atlases (A, B, and C), interlinked and showing the whole sky dome at three magnification levels. The downloadable maps are in pdf format: A4/A3 for Europe, letter/tabloid for USA.
    • The A-Set consists of 25 A4 charts showing stars up to 9 magnitude, with 70º charts.
    • The B-Set includes 107 charts up to 11 magnitude, with 30º charts.
    • The C-Set includes 571 charts (12º each) up to 12.6 magnitude, more powerful than the Millennium Atlas, listing for instance all known planetary nebulae (about 1,200) and open clusters (about 1,800), galaxies up to 15.5 magnitude (about 37,000), double stars up to 12.5 magnitude (about 35,000), etc.
    • Complementary edition: the intermediate B-C set: 218 charts in A4/letter format - the solution if you want a powerful atlas without printing the 571 charts of the C-set.
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Deep Sky


Reference data of stars


Amateur Deep Sky Observation Logs

  • VVS DeepskyLog: [n] www.deepskylog.be
    A forum on the VVS (Flemish Astronomical Association) website, where amateur astronomers can share their observations of Deep-Sky objects.
     
  • IAAC NetAstroCatalog: [e] www.visualdeepsky.org
    The Internet Amateur Astronomers Catalog (IAAC) is a forum for amateur astronomers at all levels to share their observations of Deep-Sky objects.

Catalogs for observation

Below catalogs and atlases assist the amateur astronomer in the preparation of observing sessions.


  • Deepsky Atlas (Hawaiian Astronomical Society): [e] www.hawastsoc.org/deepsky/
    The most popular deep-sky objects (Messier and NGC objects), organized by constellation. With excellent finder charts and images.
     
  • Virtual Colony (Duane Frybarger): [e] www.virtualcolony.com/sac/
    Employs a web-based version of the Saguaro Astronomy Club's database (ver 7.2), consisting of over 10,000 records. This online version of the SAC database allows amateur astronomers to generate detailed and customized observing lists.
     
  • The MAC Minimum Aperture Catalogue (Jere Kahanpää): [e] www.elisanet.fi/jere.kahanpaa/astro/MAC.html
    Catalogue ordered by constellation, with reference data, drawings and observation notes for many deep-sky objects.

Reference catalogs

Below catalogs are organized "by object number" and allow to find information on specific objects.


  • The Messier Catalog (SEDS): [e][f][d][o] www.seds.org/messier/
    Everything on the Messier objects, with historical information, descriptions and images.
     
  • The NGC/IC Project: [e] www.ngcic.org (wayback machine link)
    The NGC/IC Project is a collaborative effort between professional and amateur astronomers to correctly identify all of the original NGC and IC objects, starting with the original discoverer's notes and working forward in time to encompass the work of contemporary astronomers, both professional and amateur, such that the identity of each of the NGC and IC objects is known with as much certainty as we can reasonably bring to it from the existing historical record.
     
  • Messier45.com (Mikkel Steine): [e] www.messier45.com
    Initiative of the Norwegian amateur astronomer Mikkel Steine. The Deep Sky Browser is an easy to use front-end for the Deep Sky Database which includes accurate and useful information for about 500,000 deep sky objects and over 2 million stars, with maps and images for every object, and with powerful search capabilities.
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Solar System


Planets reference data and viewers

  • JPL Solar System Simulator: [e] space.jpl.nasa.gov
    Shows Sun, Moon, Planets and their Moons, at various times and from various vantage points throughout the solar system.
     
  • JPL Solar System Dynamics: [e] ssd.jpl.nasa.gov
    Reference data for Sun, Moon, Planets, their Moons, and various Spacecraft.
     
  • Planetary Rings Node On-line Tools (Showalter, SETI): [e] pds-rings.seti.org/tools/
    Planet viewers, Moon trackers, Ephemeris generators.

Minor Planets and Comets


The Moon

Simple maps


Detailed atlases (online)

  • Online Moon Atlases (Lunar and Planetary Institute, NASA): [e] www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/lunar_atlases/
    • Lunar Orbiter Atlas of the Moon
    • Consolidated Lunar Atlas
    • Apollo Image Atlas
    • Ranger Photographs of the Moon
    • Lunar Map Catalog
    Some of these products can also be ordered on CD-R or DVD-R, see LPI online store [e] https://www.lpi.usra.edu/store/products.cfm
     
  • The Photographic Moon Book (Alan Chu): [e] www.alanchuhk.com (dead link)
    Mirror website: [e] www.cityastronomy.com/moonbook-mirror.htm
    The book is intended as an observer's guide, also as a complement to the classic "Hatfield Photographic Lunar Atlas" and the cartographic "Antonín Rükl Atlas of the Moon". The book collects over 250 photographs, many of them by the author. Approx. 200 pages. (Download in pdf or in MS Word format).
     
  • An Amateur's Moon: Portfolio of lunar drawings and pictures (Alexander Vandenbohede): [e] users.telenet.be/lunarsite/
    The book's first part is a collection of the author's best pictures and drawings arranged according to the Moon's phase. The second part illustrates projects like photographing the phases of Moon, imaging its monthly changes, studying the libration zones and more. Approx. 150 pages. (View online or download as pdf).

Detailed atlases (software)

  • Virtual Moon Atlas (Patrick Chevalley, Christian Legrand): [e][f][o] ap-i.net/avl/
    This software can visualize the Moon aspect for every date and hour and pilot computerized telescopes on the Moon surface. It permits also to study lunar formations with a unique database and pictures library. The software can be downloaded free of charge or can be ordered on CD-ROM.

Detailed atlases (in book form)

Bibliographies of Moon atlases in book form (incl. Rükl, Hatfield and several other ones) are given by:


Wiki

  • The-Moon Wiki: [e] the-moon.wikispaces.com
    This wiki - The-Moon - is an experiment to collect data about individual features, arranged alphabetically by name. As a wiki anyone (after registering) can add or edit every entry.
    Also contains a glossary and an extensive bibliography on the Moon.
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Encyclopedias and Glossaries


Encyclopedias

  • The Internet Encyclopedia of Science (formerly named Encyclopedia of Astrobiology, Astronomy, and Spaceflight): [e] www.daviddarling.info

Glossaries
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