[vsnet-chat 733] Re: USNO-A

[aah@nofs.navy.mil]

  Taichi Kato wrote, in response to my inquiry about nomenclature, that
the star name USNO 1425.09823278 was accepted by the IAUC.  That made
me think, and I went over to the official nomenclature site
         http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/iau-spec.html
and looked at the documentation for nomenclature.  It turns out that
either a format 'acronym sequence_number' or 'acronym coordinates' is
acceptable, so Taichi is correct.
  That document strongly prefers the 'acronym coordinate' format, since
that format relays the maximum information content regarding the object.
They suggest the coordinate accuracy to be sufficient to uniquely identify
the object, with perhaps higher quality coordinates in the published paper
on the object.  For stellar objects, I'd assume that 1arcsec is
sufficient to uniquely identify most objects.  If you use the
'acronym sequence_number' format, then I'd strongly suggest that you make
the acronym USNOA1.0 as proposed by Taichi.
  USNO-A1.0 is planned to be supplanted by USNO-A2.0 (on the ICRS) soon,
and by USNO-B (proper motions) sometime in the future, so I think there
is less of a stable, fixed nature to this catalog than there was for the
GSC.  Dave's goal is to make the best possible astrometric catalog, and
he is certainly well on his way towards that end.
Arne

VSNET Home Page

Return to Daisaku Nogami

---

vsnet-adm@kusastro.kyoto-u.ac.jp