STARCAT 5.1 release notes

New Navigation

New inter-screen navigation. In order to facilitate the navigation across the various screens available (roughly 170!) and in particular to remove the cumbersome HST part, a new navigation mechanism has been implemented. We think it is much simpler and much more flexible than in the past. The only command syntax to remember for accessing any particular screen is the following:


    "cat <screen-name>[@<type-of-services>[!<server>]]"

where

<screen-name> is usually the catalogue name (e.g., ngc, post-obs, pipeline, pytheas);
<type-of-service> is the category or database (e.g., astrocat, hst, eso or cfht).
<server> can be omitted most of the time, since it is defaulted to a reasonable value in the configuration file.

To facilitate navigation and short-handed access, any unique abbreviation can be used. Example: "cat post" is uniquely mapped to "post-obs@hst!ESOECF". Similarly, "cat pipe" refers to "cat pipeline@eso!ESOECF". However, "cat hr" is not sufficient to address the Bright Star catalogue, because it conflicts with "hrcam@cfht!CADC". In this case it will be necessary to type a few more letters ("cat hr@astro" will do). The above described the tricks for the user already familiar with STARCAT. What about the "newbie"? The problem with the old STARCAT was to know the name of the available screens. This is now done in a very simple manner.

Let's take an example. I would like to know what galaxy catalogues are available in STARCAT. I need radial velocities. I know this must be in the astronomical catalogues, so I can now type: "starcat cat astro". A screen appears with a list of topics: "galaxies", "stellar", "radio", "mission_log", "other". I can now type "cat galaxies" to see more. A large screen appears with plenty of options. Among them "zcat CFA Redshift Catalogue". I can now type "cat zcat" and start qualifying and retrieving records using the usual commands.

This pseudo-hierarchy is therefore extremely useful to interactively find what is available in STARCAT, and at the same time allow for expert short-handed quick access to known screens.

Another set of very useful features include "stacking" of screens. From within the Query menu, another screen can be called up and queries run against it. Upon exit, the previous screen will return. The "Back" and "Forward" commands will be used to return to previously visited screens.

SIMBAD access in Center command

A SIMBAD access has been added to the "Center" command. Instead of simply typing coordinates and a radius to specify a search cone, one can now look for catalogue entries around a known object by simply specifying its name.

Once the name is entered, STARCAT opens a network connection to the CDS in Strasbourg and and retrieves the coordinates of the object specified. There are two big advantages to this new facility:

any synonym of an object name can be entered. The proper coordinates will be retrieved, regardless of the name used. E.g., M 31 and NGC 224 would yield the same output.
the tool is extremely valuable to search for observations of a given object in an observation log like the IUE catalogue, the HST or the ESO archive.

For example, specifying NGC224 and a 10 arc min radius in the HST science screen would yield target names such as: G141, S-AND-OFFSET-STAR, PARALLEL-FIELD, NGC224-10, S-AND-FIELD, NGC224-NW2, NGC224-NUC, etc... Such a facility guarantees that no records of potential interest will be skipped.

It goes without saying that this facility is also available for our batch program and StarMail users. (Interested users should send mail to catalog@eso.org for a sample program)

Multi-server

Multi-Server access was promised already a long time ago. It is now a reality. It allows to use the services provided by either the ESO/ECF or the CADC archives.

By default, STARCAT will utilize the services available at the site from which STARCAT was received i.e., a French user running STARCAT at his/her Institute will connect to the astronomical catalogues, the HST archive and the ESO archive at ESO/ECF. The CFHT archive screens will be transparently accessed through an `invisible' connection to the Canadian Astronomy Data Centre (CADC) database server (in Victoria, British Columbia). However, if for some reason, the connection to us is not available, it is possible to re specify a connection to the CADC, acting therefore as a backup server.

For example, typing "starcat cat ngc" will get the ngc catalog screen and data from the ESO/ECF.

The table below illustrates the services available at both sites at the time of writing:


		 ESOECF          CADC
		 -----------------------------------------
		 astrocat        YES (def)       YES
		 hst             YES (def)       YES
		 eso             YES             NO
		 cfht            NO              YES
		 ------------------------------------------
		 preview_hst     YES             YES
		 preview_eso     NO              NO
		 preview_cfht    NO              YES
		 preview_esolv   YES             NO
		 other previews  YES             YES

Reqtool

In order to generalize the submission of requests for off-line data products across the several archives now supported by our system, it was necessary to develop a new tool. It is called "ReqTool" and is started by STARCAT when the first record of interest is "Mark"ed for retrieval. The tool will run in an independent window and will provide all kinds of buttons and tools to easily prepare, edit and submit a request. It also offers the possibility to follow the status of a previously submitted request. It presently supports the submission of requests for HST, ESOLV, ESO and CFHT archival data.

Ports

STARCAT is now available for both Solaris 1.x (SunOs 4.1.x) and Solaris 2.x platforms. A HP/UX version should be ready soon.

New Catalogues

euve@astrocat: The EUVE Survey.
exposures@cfht: The CFHT observation catalogue.
hb_qso_arefs@astrocat: HB_QSO Catalogue Annotated References.
hb_qso_general@astrocat: HB_QSO Catalogue General.
hb_qso_hst@astrocat: HB_QSO Catalogue HST Observations (Preview).
hb_qso_lines@astrocat: HB_QSO Catalogue Line List .
hb_qso_names@astrocat: HB_QSO Catalogue Alternate Names .
hb_qso_refs@astrocat: HB_QSO Catalogue Reference List.
hb_qso_selection@astrocat: HB_QSO Catalogue Selection Criteria.
hb_qso_zabs@astrocat: HB_QSO Catalogue Absorption Redshifts.
iras_ssc@astrocat: The IRAS Serendipitious Survey Catalogue.
isaoprop@astrocat: The Guaranteed time planned observation for the Infrared Space Observatory.
iue@astrocat: The latest IUE log.
mwgc@astrocat: The Wilky Way Globular Cluster Catalogue.
ppm@astrocat: The Positions and Proper Motions Catalogue.
pmn@astrocat: The Parkes-MIT-NRAO survey.
rosat@astrocat: The ROSAT images catalogue with Preview.
zcat@astrocat: The 1993 version of the CFA redshift survey.

Preview Data

STARCAT Preview Data is available for the following catalogues:

bpgs@astrocat: The Bruzual Perrson Gunn Stryker Catalogue.
esolv@astrocat: The ESO Catalogue of Galaxies Lauberts-Valentijn 1989.
iras_psc@astrocat: Low Resolution Spectra from the IRAS observatory provided by the University of Calgary infrared group.
iue@astrocat: The Uniform Low Dispersion Archive from the observatory provided by the Vilspa IUE centre.
kinney@astrocat: Kinney's UV archive of QSOs.
rosat@astrocat: The ROSAT images catalogue with Preview.
exposures@cfht: The CFHT observation catalogue.
science@hst: The Hubble Space Telescope Catalogue.

Notes

Layout of the chips for the preview of WFPC2 images:

Please report felicitations/suggestions/problems to us.

cadc@dao.nrc.ca