[vsnet-chat 1420] Re: IAU nomenclature for USNO catalogues

[bas@lowell.Lowell.Edu (Brian Skiff)]

     For the USNO series catalogues, the "A1.0" or "A2.0" should always be
given so that there is no ambiguity about which catalogue is being used.
Remember that there will be not only higher versions of the A-series, but also
soon a B-series (that include proper motions), and there exists in unpublished
form catalogues from USNO-Flagstaff called the "UJ" series, which the last
time I knew was up to UJ1.4.  Thus these designations will become important
for distinguishing these catalogues.
     Yes, there should be a space between the "origin" (USNO-A1.0) and the
"sequence" (1425......).
     No, the brackets <....> should not be used.

     In re the GSC, the IAU nomenclature committee recommends names be given
in the form "GSC fffff-nnnnn", where 'fffff' is the region number, and 'nnnnn'
is the seuqence number within each region.  Note that a hyphen should be used
between the two parts (not a colon or decimal/period), and that a leading zero
is required in both parts.  For example, the star Yoshida-san mentions should
be written GSC 04015-03523.  Since there are only 9500-some regions and 
always less than 9999 stars per region, the leading zeros seem to me to be
unnecessary---I would simply use GSC 4015-3523 in publication.
     The only difference between GSC versions 1.1 and 1.2 is an improvement
in the coordinates (those in GSC v1.2 are indeed very good), with no changes
in star count or sequence.  Thus in publication one can simply use the GSC
number, but specify which version the coordinates come from, if they are
quoted.

     I wrote an article about the complexity of celestial names for "Sky &
Telescope" magazine several years ago, and the text is available in both
English and Spanish (sorry, no Japanese) at the Sky Pub Web site:

http://vsnet.skypub.com/backyard/dsonames.html

Also, the intricate details of the naming schemes for any catalogue can be
found using the "nomneclature dictionary" from the Strasbourg data center:

http://vizier.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/Dic

Presumably there are copies of this at the Goddard (US) and Japanese ADAC
versions of VizieR.
     Hope this is not too confusing!

\Brian

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