Celestial Data

This repository contains several datasets in GeoJSON and GeoPackage format of celestial objects as of J2000 epoch.

The original files were provided on the d3-celestial plugin (Frohn 2015) under BSD 3-Clause. The datasets on this repository consists on the same data provided on d3-celestial plugin processed with the R package sf (Pebesma 2018) to ensure its validity:

• The spatial data objects are bounded to $[-180, -90, 180, 90]$.

• Date is provided on WGS84 - World Geodetic System 1984 (EPSG:4326).

• All geometries valid as per ST_IsValid (GEOS 3.9.3).

Distribution

The data can be accessed from several API endpoints:

<!-- From GitHub -->
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/dieghernan/celestial_data/main/data/mw.min.geojson

<!-- From the Website -->
https://dieghernan.github.io/celestial_data/data/mw.min.geojson

<!-- From jsDelivr -->
https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/dieghernan/celestial_data@main/data/mw.min.geojson

Citation

Please cite these datasets as:

Frohn O, Hernangómez D (2023). “Celestial Data.” doi:10.5281/zenodo.7561601 https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7561601, https://dieghernan.github.io/celestial_data/.

A BibTeX entry:

@misc{frohnhernangomez:2023,
    title        = {Celestial Data},
    author       = {Olaf Frohn and Diego Hernangómez},
    year         = 2023,
    doi          = {10.5281/zenodo.7561601},
    url          = {https://dieghernan.github.io/celestial_data/},
}

Data

Data is provided in GeoJSON (*.geojson) and GeoPackage (*.gpkg) format. Additionally, for GeoJSON formats a minified version (*.min.geojson) is also provided.

The data source can be found on https://github.com/dieghernan/celestial_data/tree/main/data.

List of files provided

• asterisms.geojson
• asterisms.gpkg
• asterisms.min.geojson
• constellations.borders.cn.geojson
• constellations.borders.cn.gpkg
• constellations.borders.cn.min.geojson
• constellations.borders.geojson
• constellations.borders.gpkg
• constellations.borders.min.geojson
• constellations.bounds.cn.geojson
• constellations.bounds.cn.gpkg
• constellations.bounds.cn.min.geojson
• constellations.bounds.geojson
• constellations.bounds.gpkg
• constellations.bounds.min.geojson
• constellations.cn.csv
• constellations.cn.geojson
• constellations.cn.gpkg
• constellations.cn.min.geojson
• constellations.csv
• constellations.geojson
• constellations.gpkg
• constellations.lines.cn.geojson
• constellations.lines.cn.gpkg
• constellations.lines.cn.min.geojson
• constellations.lines.geojson
• constellations.lines.gpkg
• constellations.lines.min.geojson
• constellations.min.geojson
• dsonames.cn.csv
• dsonames.csv
• dsos.14.geojson
• dsos.14.gpkg
• dsos.14.min.geojson
• dsos.20.geojson
• dsos.20.gpkg
• dsos.20.min.geojson
• dsos.6.geojson
• dsos.6.gpkg
• dsos.6.min.geojson
• dsos.bright.geojson
• dsos.bright.gpkg
• dsos.bright.min.geojson
• lg.geojson
• lg.gpkg
• lg.min.geojson
• messier.geojson
• messier.gpkg
• messier.min.geojson
• mw.geojson
• mw.gpkg
• mw.min.geojson
• starnames.cn.csv
• starnames.csv
• stars.14.geojson
• stars.14.gpkg
• stars.14.min.geojson
• stars.6.geojson
• stars.6.gpkg
• stars.6.min.geojson
• stars.8.geojson
• stars.8.gpkg
• stars.8.min.geojson

See additional details on https://dieghernan.github.io/celestial_data/data

Original data sources

For completion, we add the original data sources cited by Frohn (2015):

• asterisms.*:

  • Saguaro Astronomy Club Asterisms

• constellations.* and constellations.lines.*:

  • IAU Constellation page, name positions and some line modifications by Olaf Frohn, , names in other languages from Wikipedia

• constellations.bounds.*:

  • Davenhall, A. C., and S. K. Leggett. 1989. “Catalogue of Constellation Boundary Data.” http://vizier.cfa.harvard.edu/viz-bin/Cat?VI/49.

• Traditional Chinese Constellations & Stars: constellations.cn.*, constellations.bounds.cn.*, constellations.lines.cn.*, starnames.cn.*:

  • Stellarium skycultures data

• dsos.6.*, dsos.8.^*, dsos.14.*:

  • Saguaro Astronomy Club Database version 8.1

• dsos.bright.*

  • Frohn, Olaf. 2015. “d3-celestial.” https://github.com/ofrohn/d3-celestial/.

• messier.* Messier objects:

  • Messier Objects with Data, H.Frommert/seds.org

• lg.* Local group and Milky Way halo:

  • Frohn, Olaf. 2015. “d3-celestial.” https://github.com/ofrohn/d3-celestial/, from different sources: see blog, pages for complete list.

• stars.6.*, stars.8.^*, stars.14.*:

  • Anderson, E., and Ch. Francis. 2012. “XHIP: An Extended Hipparcos Compilation.” Astronomy Letters 38 (5): 331–46. https://doi.org/10.1134/S1063773712050015.

• starnames.* Star names and designations:

  • Kostjuk, N. D. 2002. “VizieR Online Data Catalog: HD-DM-GC-HR-HIP-Bayer-Flamsteed Cross Index.” VizieR Online Data Catalog, IV/27A. https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2004yCat.4027....0K.

  • Stellarium skycultures data for star name translations

References

Anderson, E., and Ch. Francis. 2012. “XHIP: An Extended Hipparcos Compilation.” Astronomy Letters 38 (5): 331–46. https://doi.org/10.1134/S1063773712050015.

Butler, H., M. Daly, A. Doyle, S. Gillies, S. Hagen, and T. Schaub. 2016. “The GeoJSON Format.” RFC7946. RFC Editor. https://doi.org/10.17487/RFC7946.

Davenhall, A. C., and S. K. Leggett. 1989. “Catalogue of Constellation Boundary Data.” http://vizier.cfa.harvard.edu/viz-bin/Cat?VI/49.

Frohn, Olaf. 2015. “d3-celestial.” https://github.com/ofrohn/d3-celestial/.

Gliese, W., and H. Jahreiß. 1991. “Preliminary Version of the Third Catalogue of Nearby Stars.” https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1991adc..rept.....G.

Kostjuk, N. D. 2002. “VizieR Online Data Catalog: HD-DM-GC-HR-HIP-Bayer-Flamsteed Cross Index.” VizieR Online Data Catalog, IV/27A. https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2004yCat.4027....0K.

Pebesma, Edzer. 2018. “Simple Features for R: Standardized Support for Spatial Vector Data.” The R Journal 10 (1): 439446. https://doi.org/10.32614/RJ-2018-009.

Samus’, N. N., E. V. Kazarovets, O. V. Durlevich, N. N. Kireeva, and E. N. Pastukhova. 2017. “General Catalogue of Variable Stars: Version GCVS 5.1.” Astronomy Reports 61 (1): 80–88. https://doi.org/10.1134/S1063772917010085.

Smith, W. B. 1996. “VizieR Online Data Catalog: FK5 - SAO - HD - Common Name Cross Index.” VizieR Online Data Catalog, August, IV/22. https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1996yCat.4022....0S.