List of Common Deep Sky Catalogs
Below is a listing of the various more and less common catalogs of deep sky
objects, together with abbrevations and a short description. This list is of
course far from being comprehensive. If you have any comments or additions,
please email me.
We have some of these catalogs available here at SEDS.
Other compilations are acknowledged where they are linked.
Besides these catalogs which are often used to designate objects, there
are many observing lists and catalogs
suitable for work-through and as databases, as well as
historic deepsky catalogs, which we do
not include here.
- M: Messier
- Charles Messier's
Catalog of
110 objects.
First more reliable and comprehensive catalog of deep sky objects,
must-see for amateurs.
- NGC: New General Catalog
- J.L.E. Dreyer.
New General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars
Mem. Roy. Astron. Soc. 49, Part I (1888). Reprinted 1912 and 1953.
Attempt to compile a comprehensive list of all deep sky objects known
at that time, including the catalogs of the Herschels and Lord Rosse.
Most of these objects had been discovered visually.
- IC: Index Catalog
- J.L.E. Dreyer.
Index Catalogue of Nebulae Found in the Years 1888 to 1894,
with Notes and Corrections to the New General Catalogue,
Mem. Roy. Astron. Soc. 51, 185 (1895), and
Second Index Catalogue of Nebulae Found in the Years 1895 to 1907;
with Notes and Corrections to the New General Catalogue and to the Index
Catalogue for 1888 to 1894, Mem. Roy. Astron. Soc. 59, Part 2, 105 (1908),
both reprinted 1912 and 1953.
Many IC objects had been discovered photographically.
Note: NGC, IC and Messier objects can be accessed interactively by the
SEDS Interactive NGC
Online Catalog.
Less common general catalogs:
- Dun, Delta: Dunlop
- James Dunlop's (1795-1848) historic catalog of southern deep sky objects.
James Dunlop, A catalogue of nebulae and clusters of stars in the
southern hemisphere, observed at Paramatta in New South Wales, by James
Dunlop, Esq.
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, Vol. 118,
p. 113--151, 1828.
Catalog of 629 positions of nebulous objects. Many of them were only
badly determined, though.
- GC: General Catalog
- John Herschel's famous General Catalog of nonstellar objects.
- H: (William) Herschel
- William Herschel's catalog of 2500 deep sky objects
- h: (John) Herschel
- John Herschel's catalog, 2 parts 1833 (northern objects) and 1847
(southern):
1. Observations of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars, made at Slough,
with a Twenty-feet Reflector, between the years 1825 and 1833.
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, Vol. 123,
p. 359--505, 1833. 2307 objects.
2. Results of Astronomical Observations made during the years
1834, 5, 6, 7, 8 at the Cape of Good Hope, being a completion of a
telescopic survey of the whole surface of the visible heavens commenced
in 1825. Smith, Elder & Co., London. The 1713 entries in this
catalog were numbered in continuation of John Herschel's 1833 catalog,
and are normally referred as h 2308 -- h 4021.
- Lac: Lacaille
- Abbe Nicholas Louis de la Caille (1713-62).
Sur les etoiles nebuleuses du ciel Austral
(On the Nebulous Stars of the Southern Sky).
Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences in Paris, 1755.
- G: Galactic Supernova Remnant
- Galactic Supernova Remnants, from
A Catalogue of Galactic Supernova Remnants (1996 August version),
by David A. Greene of Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory, Cambridge, UK.
- PK:
Perek-Kohoutek
- Perek and Kohoutek. Catalog of Galactic Planetary Nebulae, Prague, 1967.
Compilation of all Planetary Nebulae known at 1964.
- Abell
-
The Abell Planetary Nebulae, presented online by
Tom Polakis.
Also note Jim Shields'
Best &
Brightest Abell Planetaries page.
A large number of more Planetary Nebulae catalogs is listed in the
Appendix A of
S.J. Hynes, Planetary Nebulae,
page 251-256.
- Ced: Cederblad
- S. Cederblad. Catalog of Bright Diffuse Galactic Nebulae.
Meddelanden fran Lunds Observatorium, Ser. 2, 12, No. 119 (1946)
- DWB: Dickel, Wendker, Bieritz
-
- GN: Galactic Nebula
- Anonymous Galactic Nebula from the "Atlas of Galactic Nebulae" by
T. Neckel and H. Vehrenberg
- Gum
- C.S. Gum. A Survey of Southern H II Regions. Memoirs of the RAS,
67:155 (1955)
- LBN: Lynds, Catalogue of Bright Nebulae
- B.T. Lynds. Catalogue of Bright Nebulae. Astrophysical Journal
Supplement Series, 12:163 (1965). Contains both emission and reflection
nebulae. Normally quoted only if a "Sh2" or "vdB" number is missing.
- Mi, M1: Minkowski
- R. Minkowski. New Emission Nebulae. Publications of the Astronomical
Society of the Pacific, 58:305 (1946).
- Sh2: Sharpless
- S. Sharpless. A Catalogue of H II Regions. Astrophysical Journal
Supplement Series, 4:257 (1959). Comprehensive catalog of galactic emission
nebulae.
- vdB: van den Bergh
- S. van den Bergh. A Study of Reflection Nebulae. Astronomical Journal,
71:990 (1966). Comprehensive catalog of galactic reflection nebulae.
- B: Barnard
- E.E. Barnard. Catalogue of 349 Dark Objects in the Sky. In
A Photographic Atlas of Selected Regions in the Milky Way,
Washington, DC, 1927; Carnegie Inst. First catalog of dark nebulae,
created from photos.
- LDN: Lynds, Catalogue of Dark Nebulae
- B.T. Lynds. Catalogue of Dark Nebulae. Astrophysical Journal
Supplement Series, 7:1 (1962). Comprehensive catalog of galactic dark
nebulae.
- A: Antalova
-
- Av-Hunter
-
- Bar, Bark:
Barkhatova
-
- Bas:
Basel
-
- Be:
Berkeley
-
- Bi, Biur:
Biurkan
-
- Blanco
-
- Bo:
Bochum
-
- Cr: Collinder
- Per Collinder (d. 1974), Lund Ann. No. 2 (1931). Catalogue of 471 open
clusters, identified on the Franklin-Adams charts, the NGC catalog, and
the catalogs of Bailey, Melotte, Raab, Shapley, Trumpler, and others.
- Cz:
Czernik
-
- Do:
Dolidze
-
- DoDz:
Dolidze/Dzimselejsvili
-
- Fr:
Frolov
-
- Graff
-
- Grasdalen
-
- Haf:
Hafner
-
- H: Harvard
-
- Iskudarian
-
- K:
King
- Ivan R. King
- Latysev
-
- Lynga
-
- Mrk:
Markarian
-
- Mayer
-
- Mel: Melotte
- Philibert Jacques Melotte (1880-1961),
Roy. Astron. Soc. Mem. 60 (1915) 175
- Pi: Pismis
-
- Ro:
Roslund
-
- Ru: Ruprecht
- J. Ruprecht
- Ste:
Stephenson
-
- St:
Stock
- Jürgen Stock
- Tom: Tombaugh
-
Clyde Tombaugh's Small List of Open Clusters
- Tr: Trümpler
- R.J. Trumpler, Lick Obs. Bull. Vol XIV, No. 420 (1930) 154-188.
Mikkel Steine has made available a
Gallery of the Trumpler Open Star Clusters
- Up: Upgren
-
- vdB: van den Bergh-Waterloo
-
- Arp
- Halton A. Arp. Globular Clusters in the Galaxy. In:
Galactic Structure, ed. A. Blaauw, p. 401. Univ. of Chicago Press,
1965.
- E:
-
- ESO:
-
- HP: Haute Provence
-
- Pal:
Palomar
- 15 very faint globular clusters discovered within the POSS
(Palomar Observatory Sky Survey). At least some are observable with
large aperture amateur instruments, though.
- Ter: Terzan
- 12 globulars discovered by A. Terzan in the infrared; mostly heavily
obscured and situated near the Galactic Center.
Terzan 7 and 8 are probably members of the
Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy.
- Ton: Tonantzintla
-
- UKS: UK Schmidt
-
- Arp
- Halton Arp, Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies.
Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, 14:1 (1966), and
California Institute of Technology (reprinted 1978).
Available online
thanks to Dennis Webb
- AM: Arp-Madore
- Halton C. Arp, Barry F. Madore.
A Catalogue of Southern Peculiar Galaxies and Associations:
Positions and Descriptions (Vol 1),
Selected Photographs (Vol 2), Cambridge University Press.
Thanks to Mike Smith of COMET/UCAR
for providing this information.
- DDO: David Dunlop Observatory
- S. van den Bergh. Luminosity Classifications of Dwarf Galaxies.
Astronomical Journal, 71:922 (1966)
- GR: Gibson Reaves
-
- Holm: Holmberg
-
- Mrk: Markarian
-
- MCG: Morphiological Catalogue of Galaxies
- Vorontsov-Velyaminov and Arhipova, Moscow State University, 1962-1968,
4 volumes. Contains 29,000 objects. Also referred to as VV.
- PGC: Principal Galaxies Catalogue
- Paturel, Fouque, Bottineli, and Gougenheim, Observatoire de Lyon, France
- UGC: Uppsala General Catalogue of Galaxies
- Nilson, Uppsala, 1973. Contains 12921 objects.
- UGC-A, UA: Catalogue of Selected Non-UGC Galaxies
-
- VV: Vorontsov-Velyaminov
- = MCG
- 1Z to 7Z: Zwicky
- Fritz Zwicky's compact systems
Other important catalogs of galaxies, which are however not normally quoted,
include
- RC3: Third Reference Catalogue of Bright Galaxies
- G. de Vaucoulears, A. de Vaucouleurs, Corwin, Buta, Fouque, and Paturel;
1991.
- Abell
- G.O. Abell. The Distribution of Rich Clusters of Galaxies.
Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, 3:211 (1958).
- RCG: Catalogue of Rich Clusters of Galaxies
- Abell, Corwin, Olowin; Centre de Donnees Stellaires, Strasbourg, France 1989.
- ADS: Aitken, New General Catalog of Double Stars
- R.G. Aitken. New General Catalogue of Double Stars Within 120 deg of the
North Pole. Washington, DC, 1932; Carnegie Inst.
- Beta, BDS: Burnham
- S.W. Burnham. A General Catalogue of Double Stars Within 121 deg of the
North Pole. Washington, DC, 1906; Carnegie Inst.
- Sigma: F.G.W. Struve
-
- O Sigma: Otto Struve
-
Hartmut Frommert
(spider@seds.org)
Christine Kronberg
(smil@lrz.uni-muenchen.de)
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Last Modification: 14 Feb 1998, 17:30 MET