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IAU Sky Constellation Resources
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— Viorica Hrincu
Having recently drawn a few skycharts (Superclusters & Voids, Sanctuary Project), I was frustrated by the lack of parsable resources for the IAU Constellations.
Finding a plain-text parsable definition of the asterisms proved impossible. So I created my own.
IAU Constellation Shapes
DOWNLOAD CONSTELLATION SHAPE FILE
DOWNLOAD YALE CATALOGUE OF BRIGHT STARS POSITION FILE
# CHANGE LOG # # 29 Nov 2018 # + line between Betelgeuse (HR 2061) and Bellatrix (HR 1790) in Orion added # # 27 June 2018 # + Greek designations now a separate field # + fixed Proxima Centauri and Barnard's Star, neither of which # are in BSC
All the constellation shapes were derived by manually examining the IAU map and cross-referencing the stars to the Yale Catalogue of Bright Stars.
The list of IAU constellation shapes in the file linked to above conveniently includes the J2000 right ascention and declination for each stars in the pair, along with their HR index, magnitude, Greek letter designation and name. See the file header for all the details.
For example, Cassiopeia's familiar "W" appears as 4 lines that indicate the connections between HR stars 21-168-264-403-542.
Cas 21 2.294583 59.149722 2.27 bet Caph|bet Cas|11 Cas
168 10.127083 56.537222 2.23 alf Schedar|alf Cas|18 Cas
Cas 168 10.127083 56.537222 2.23 alf Schedar|alf Cas|18 Cas
264 14.177083 60.716667 2.47 gam BU 499A|BU 1028|gam Cas|27 Cas
Cas 264 14.177083 60.716667 2.47 gam BU 499A|BU 1028|gam Cas|27 Cas
403 21.454167 60.235278 2.68 del Ruchbah|BUP 19A|del Cas|37 Cas
Cas 403 21.454167 60.235278 2.68 del Ruchbah|BUP 19A|del Cas|37 Cas
542 28.598750 63.670000 3.38 eps Segin|eps Cas|45 Cas
The names are obtained from IAU Catalog of Star Names (IAU-CSN) and Simbad's name fields "NAME", "*" and "**", in that order. You can conveniently browse the Simbad database by any star identifier. For example, for Sirius the URL is http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/sim-id?Ident=sirius.
Please report any errors to me.
Bitmap, SVG and PDF Constellation Shapes
The shapes of all the constellations and the stars that define the asterisms shown in the image below. I also include all the 110 Messier objects with common names in this map (hollow circles).
The map also shows the galactic equator and the ecliptic. The vernal equinox, summer solstice, autumn equinox and winter solstice occur along the ecliptic at right ascension 0/360 (Pices), 270 (Sagittarius), 180 (Vigo) and 90 (Gemini/Taurus).
Whole-sky star charts are traditionally drawn with 360 right ascention on the left in decreasing order towards 0 on the right.
You can download this file as PNG, SVG or PDF.
If you're interested in more astronomical resources, check out my Universe Superclusters and Voids resource page.
Detailed Sky Chart
I've also created detailed charts that include all the 9,110 stars in the Yale Catalogue of Bright Stars. These are labeled by their Greek designation with the constellation as well as with their IAU name.
The maps also show all 110 Messier objects, labeled by their index and, where available, a common name. All the labels in these maps have been lovingly adjusted manually to avoid ambiguity and overlap. Available are blue, black and white background versions.
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