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National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Goddard Space Flight Center

Astrophysics Science Division | Sciences and Exploration

This website is kept for archival purposes only and is no longer updated.

Object Names

Due to the rather small size of the CIO's object name field, the name formats of the CIO may not always match conventional usage. Some examples of common names and their CIO non-standard equivalents are:

Common Name CIO Name
G (Gliese star) GLIESE
HH (Herbig-Haro object) H-H
HR (Yale bright star) BS
MKN, MRK (Markarian galaxy) MARK

To search for a bright star with a Greek letter name, look under the three-letter constellation abbreviation. Greek letters are represented by the abbreviations listed in the table below.
Examples: ALF CEN (Alpha Centauri) is listed with the CEN names, NUU PEG (Nu Pegasi) can be found with the PEG names, and ZET ORI (Zeta Orionis) is listed under the ORI names.

Greek
Letter		 Catalog
Abbrev
Greek
Letter		 Catalog
Abbrev
Greek
Letter		 Catalog
Abbrev
Greek
Letter		 Catalog
Abbrev
alpha ALF
gamma GAM
omega OME
sigma SIG
beta BET
iota IOT
omicron OMI
tau TAU
chi CHI
kappa KAP
phi PHI
theta THE
delta DEL
lambda LAM
pi PI
upsilon UPS
epsilon EPS
mu MUU
psi PSI
xi XI
eta ETA
nu NUU
rho RHO
zeta ZET

Searching for Catalog Listings by Source Name

Infrared sources in the Catalog are listed alphabetically by their base name (such as a constellation name) in the Source Atlas. Many sources may also have prefixes and/or suffixes as part of their name. Most source names appear in the Catalog in abbreviated form. These abbreviations are not always intuitive. For these reasons, it can sometimes be difficult to locate a source in the Catalog. However, sources can more easily be recognized by browsing the alphabetical name list in the Source Atlas which is part of this database.

After clicking on the appropriate green button, a list of source names arranged alphabetically by base name is displayed. Clicking on a highlighted source name directs the search engine to that RA/Dec in the Catalog.

The Source Atlas is arranged alphabetically by the base name

For example, to find. . .

   SOURCE      Prefix Base Suffix    Click on:
   ------      ------ ---- ------    --------
   Alpha Sco    ALPHA SCO              "S"
   NGC 1068           NGC  1068        "N"
   3C 273           3 C    273         "C"
   I ZW 10          I ZW   10          "Z"
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Positions

Positions in the CIO are taken directly from the relevant articles. In some cases, positions are derived by the editors or obtained from SIMBAD or NED, but "homogeneous" positions are not used. Therefore, data for a given object may appear at a wide variety of locations.

Positions can be entered in the formats shown on the search page and a search will be made for all objects within the indicated ranges, which can be widened or narrowed as desired. When entering positions, leading zeroes are required.

The symbols >, <, >=, and <= can be used to return all objects with RA or Dec greater than or less than the value typed in the box. For these cases, any entries in the position search range boxes are ignored. For example, to display all objects 1 degree or less from the North Celestial Pole, enter ">=+89" (without the quotation marks) in the Dec text box and leave the RA text box blank.

When the search is completed, clicking an object name enters BROWSE mode, which displays 25 records on either side of the selected record, allowing the user to check for more data of interest near that position.

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Position Ranges

By default, positions are searched over a range of one second of right ascension and ten arcseconds of declination. To specify a different range, type the desired value in the text box, and select a unit from the drop down box. Decimal values, such as 0.5 arcminutes, are acceptable.

Wavelengths

Enter wavelength in units of microns (µm). The symbols >, <, >=, and <= can be used to return all records with wavelengths greater than or less than the value typed in the first box. To search for a range of wavelengths, enter the desired values in the FROM and TO boxes. If you enter values in both boxes, the search will be *NON-INCLUSIVE* of the values you enter. Some examples are shown below.

ENTRY EXAMPLES
To Return All Observations... Enter in the boxes...
...at 10 µm
...between 2.2 - 12.4 µm,
not including those values
...greater than 25 µm
...less than or equal to 5 µm

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Fluxes

The two boxes can be used to restrict the search to a specific flux value or range of flux values. The symbols >, <, >=, and <= can be used to return all records with fluxes greater than or less than the value typed in the first box. To search for a range of fluxes, enter the desired values in the FROM and TO boxes. If you enter values in both boxes, the search will be *NON-INCLUSIVE* of the values you enter. (See examples in the table below.)

NOTE: In the case of objects with magnitude measurements (units "M" and "C"), specifying a range of "greater than" (>) will return fainter values, and specifying a range of "less than" (<) will return brighter values.

ENTRY EXAMPLES
To Return All Observations... Enter in the boxes...
...flux of 10
...flux between 100 and 1000,
not including those values
...flux greater than 1000
...flux less than or equal to 2.0

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Units

By default, a query returns all flux units appearing in the catalog. If you wish to specify one or more units, check the appropriate box(es) and/or choose a unit from one or more of the drop-down boxes. For example, to see only fluxes given in units of magnitude, check the Magnitudes box. The result will include records with flux units "M" and "C" (magnitude derived from a color measurement).

The overwhelming majority of the fluxes in the catalog were measured in Janskys or Magnitudes. To specify one of the other catalog units, highlight it in the appropriate drop-down box.

Occasionally the flux unit will include the qualifier "V" (variable or the mean of several values measured at the same beam size), "L" (lower limit), "E" (editors determined flux from maps, spectra, or other non-tabulated material), or "U" (upper limit). Records with these qualifiers will be returned by default.

Unit Definition No. of Publications
Using This Unit
A normalized magnitude 29
B 10-19 W m-2 Hz-1 Sr-1 47
C magnitude, derived from color 558
D diameter measurement 187
E erg sec-1 cm-2 Sr-1 78
F 10-16 W cm-2 µm-1 134
G 10-14 ergs sec-1 cm-2 186
H log(ergs sec-1 cm-2 Hz-1) 14
I 10-9 W cm-2 µm-1 Sr-1 16
J 10-26 W m-2 Hz-1 = 1 Jansky 1185
JA Janskys arcsec-2 2
K log(10-26 W m-2 Hz-1) 20
L log(W m-2 Hz-1) 12
M magnitude 2572
MA magnitudes arcsec-2 52
N log(ergs sec-1 cm-2 µm-1) 6
P polarization data 308
Q log(10-3 Jansky) 6
R log(W cm-2 µm-1) 8
S spectral data 1809
T -2.5 log(ergs sec-1 cm-2 Hz-1) - 48.6 9
U upper limit
V variable
W 10-14 W m-2 179
X 10-18 W cm-2 229
Y relative line intensity 50
Z 10-21 W cm-2 µm-1 arcsec-2 5

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Bibliographic Reference Number

The bibliographic reference number identifies the original journal article for each observation in the Catalog. The reference number is made up of the year and month of publication, and a sequential number which is assigned to the article (for example, "790104" breaks down into 79-01-04, where 79 = 1979, 01 = January, and 04 = article randomly assigned as #4 in that month). References that do not indicate the month of publication have "00" in the month field.

Last modified: December 5, 2000

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