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I'm looking for a link to a table of visible stars that is open and available to everyone. It should have magnitude, RA, dec, and possibly some indication of color. This will be used to produce somewhat realistic night skies as a backdrop for showing the motion of the planets in the sky.

I'm not so interested in names, constellations, etc. These are of course useful to know and possibly to plot, but what I'm primarily after is the information necessary to illustrate star position, brightness, and some color information.

edit: to reiterate, "...table of visible stars that is open and available to eveyone." I'm assuming that in 2016 the visible stars are not behind a paywall, am I wrong? Approx RA, dec, mag - are these available for open access and usage?

uhoh
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  • Not exactly repeats, but some subset of these should be merged: http://astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/11334/any-freely-available-large-stellar-spectra-catalog http://astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/13046/which-is-the-most-accurate-stars-catalogue-for-j2000-epoch http://astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/3668/where-can-i-find-a-catalog-of-all-stars-in-the-milky-way/3671 http://astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/11381/where-can-i-find-a-catalog-for-stars-within-450-light-years-of-earth http://astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/12211/is-there-a-database-for-stars/12213 more? –  Aug 22 '16 at 15:04
  • @barrycarter Yikes!! Is there some way that can preserve all of that information - some kind of community wiki like was done here and also here? Of course curating the Astronomy SE Q&A is also important. I can offer to help if necessary but I don't know how to go about it alone. – uhoh Aug 22 '16 at 15:13
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    You could create and answer your own question "what are some sources of stellar data", and mark it "community wiki". I vaguely remember there already being such a canonical question but am too lazy to find it, sorry (even though I'm pretty sure it was my own question, sigh) –  Aug 23 '16 at 15:16
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    http://astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/13488/where-can-i-find-visualize-planets-stars-moons-etc-positions (you can add or edit that one, it's already community wiki) –  Aug 23 '16 at 15:16
  • @barrycarter OK that's great - it makes the most sense just to update the wiki you've started. I'll take a look and try to consolidate there. Thanks! – uhoh Aug 23 '16 at 16:22

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The Hipparcos catalogue by van Leeuwen (2007) contains all the information you require, plus estimates of distance from parallax. It is open and free to use for scientific purposes.

http://vizier.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/VizieR?-source=I%2F311

The direct page that describes the catalogue contents and ftp site is http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/Cat?I/311

The tables themselves are at ftp://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/pub/cats/I/311

ProfRob
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  • @uhoh This is an open source catalogue for scientific use. There is no paywall, and you didn't encounter one. If you intend some sort of commercial use you will have to make your own arrangements with ESA. Could you not find your way to where the entire catalogue can be downloaded? have added the link to the table descriptions page (which you'll need) that has links to ftp downloads of the entire catalogue. – ProfRob Mar 12 '16 at 01:33
  • @uhoh ps The query page I sent you does allow you to download as much of the table as you like. The option is in the preferences box on the left hand side, in a drop-down box labelled "max". – ProfRob Mar 12 '16 at 01:35
  • @uhoh I've added it. – ProfRob Mar 12 '16 at 01:37
  • OK this seems to work! I've clicked only the boxes I need, typed <6.5 for magnitude, and after some coaching from @RobJeffries I looked on the left where it says "preferences" and changed Max: to unlimited and the format to ASCII, and received 7,982 stars! I'll follow up with ESA, but I'm non-commercial, this is a personal "science project." Thanks!! – uhoh Mar 12 '16 at 01:47
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    @uhoh Good. The catalogue is completely free and open for scientific and non-commercial use. – ProfRob Mar 12 '16 at 08:25