This page (and the accompanying updated catalogue) promotes a new nomenclature for nearby stars. It is inspired by variable designation which, once the letters are exhausted, consist of V
Designations are assigned as follows:
- The Sun is N0 [that's a zero], without any following constellation name;
- Stars in the original database are grouped by constellation and numbered from 1 in order of increasing distance (according to the best available estimate at the time: the relationship between number and distance is not of ultimate importance). Once assigned, these designations are not modified nor removed by updated parallaxes.
e.g. the Alpha Centauri system is N1 Centauri (components A-C); N2 Centauri is GJ 3737 / LHS 337. 2MASS J18450541-6357475 may now conveniently be referred to as N1 Pavonis.
- When a new star is eligible for inclusion (through the publication of a reliable trigonometric parallax >= 40mas), it will be numbered to its constellation, taking the next available designation (regardless of distance order etc).
Stars that are designated as being 'nearby' are usually those within 25 parsecs of the Sun, with distances able to be measured by accurate parallaxes. First there was Gliese & co. with the Catalogue of Nearby Stars (CNS)1. Then in 1998 a similar project was begun at Northern Arizona University, called NSTARS, but it disappeared a few years ago. A copy I made in late 2006 is attached to this page in csv format.
I'm pleased to release my unofficial update of the NSTARS catalogue, entitled the Near Star Catalogue. It proposes a new nomenclature for nearby stars that I hope will be adopted. Stars that have been shown to lie well beyond the 25pc limit have been removed; stars which lie near the limit have been retained and designated, though they may prove to lie just outside the limit.
I acknowledge the hard work done by the NSTARS team to compile the original database. Thank you also to the folks at SIMBAD, the RECONS team, Frederick Pilcher who transcribed the Uranometria Argentina, to Dr. Carolin Liefke of the University of Hamburg (see her NEXXUS database), and to Ken Slatten, whose corrections to the original NSTARS database have been passed on to me.
Click here to see blog posts on this topic.
This file is comma-delimited.
|0||#||Row number only.|
|1||N*||Identifier (see above)|
|2||Name||Name (or other identifier)|
|6||Var ID||Variable designation|
|7||GJ||Gliese Catalogue ID|
|8||LHS||Luyten Half Second Catalogue ID|
|9||PLX||Trigonometric Parallax Catalogue ID|
|10||HIP||Hipparcos Catalogue ID|
|11||Giclas||Giclas Catalogue ID|
|14||HR||HR number (Bright Star Catalogue)|
|15||RA (2000.0)||Right Ascension (2000.0)|
|16||dec (2000.0)||Declination (2000.0)|
|20||APM||Annual Proper Motion|
|21||PosA||PM Position Angle|
|36||NS||Original or updated/corrected NSTARS id. Do not use: for information only.|
I have several files for download:
- ns.csv: The original NSTARS database, circa 2006. This formed the basis for the current catalogue;
. The latest Near Star Catalogue, in the format describe above;
- nstars_planets.csv. Some exo-planets that were included in the original NSTARS database. These were not retained in the Near Star Catalogue;
- removed.csv. Stars from the original NSTARS catalogue, where post-Hipparcos research has shown that they lie well beyond the 25pc limit. These have been removed and undesignated in the NSC.