space-cats

Astronomical object lists in normalized JSON format. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomical_catalogue

Catalogs

• catalogs/messier.json https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messier_object
• catalogs/caldwell.json https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caldwell_catalogue
• catalogs/herschel400.json https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herschel_400_Catalogue
• catalogs/sharpless.json https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharpless_catalog
• catalogs/bennett.json https://www.astroleague.org//wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Bennett-Spreadsheet-Complete.pdf
• catalogs/dunlop.json https://assa.saao.ac.za/sections/deep-sky/james-dunlops-catalogue/
• catalogs/bambury.json https://ozsky.org/BAM600/
• catalogs/whitman.json https://ozsky.org/pdf/SouthernHemisphereSplendours.pdf

Coordinates are J2000 decimal degrees:

• ra: right ascension in degrees
• dec: declination in degrees
• duration: suggested imaging block in seconds
• priority: optional scheduler weight

The files use schema/space-cats-v1.schema.json.

Build

The generated catalogs can be rebuilt from a local NGC/IC/Messier master file:

python3 tools/build_deepsky_catalogs.py --master catalogs/ngc-ic-messier-catalog.json

caldwell, herschel400, sharpless, bennett, dunlop, bambury, and whitman require network access for their source tables.