README
1Astro::Catalog module
2---------------------
3
4What is it?
5-----------
6
7The module is a generic object orientated astronomical catalogue object.
8
9Requirements
10------------
11
12The madatory requirement of the Astro::Catalog package are,
13
14 Astro::Coords
15 Astro::Telescope
16 Time::Piece
17 File::Spec
18 Math::Libm
19 Net::Domain
20 LWP::UserAgent
21 SOAP::Lite
22 Test
23 Test::More
24 Data::Dumper
25 Carp
26 Astro::VO::VOTable
27 Astro::Flux
28 Number::Uncertainty
29 Misc::Quality
30
31See http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/classx/votable/index.html to obtain the GSFC
32Astro::VO::VOTable package. You need V0.9 or later of this module.
33
34Provides
35--------
36
37The package provides the following user level classes
38
39 Astro::Catalog
40 A generic catalogue object, includes pluggable I/O support.
41
42 Astro::Catalog::Item
43 A generic catalogue item.
44
45NB: Astro::Catalog::Star is maintained for backwards compatibility.
46
47The following classes can be used to query various online databases
48for astronomical objects. They all return an Astro::Catalog object
49populated with matching Astro::Catalog::Item objects.
50
51 Astro::Catalog::Query::2MASS
52 Queries the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) catalogue.
53
54 Astro::Catalog::Query::CMC
55 Queries the Carlsberg Meridian Catalogue (CMC/12).
56
57 Astro::Catalog::Query::GSC
58 Queries the Guide Star Catalog (GSC).
59
60 Astro::Catalog::Query::MPC
61 Queries the Minor Planet Center database for solar system objects.
62
63 Astro::Catalog::Query::Sesame
64 Queries the CDS Sesame web service.
65
66 Astro::Catalog::Query::SIMBAD
67 Queries the CDS SIMBAD database. Implements most of the functionality
68 of the Astro::SIMBAD module.
69
70 Astro::Catalog::Query::SkyCat
71 Queries SkyCat catalogues. For some catalogue queries, parsing of the
72 returned catalogue will not work. In some cases the URLs of the
73 resources may break this module's parsing code.
74
75 Astro::Catalog::Query::SuperCOSMOS
76 Queries the SuperCOSMOS catalogue.
77
78 Astro::Catalog::Query::USNOA2
79 Queries the USNO-A2.0 catalogue.
80
81 Astro::Catalog::Query::Vizier
82 Queries Vizier catalogues. For some catalogue queries, parsing of the
83 returned catalogue will not work.
84
85Additional classes provided by the package handle things that you don't
86need to concern yourself with, unless you want to write your own I/O or
87query plugins, these are
88
89 Astro::Catalog::IO::Astrom (write only)
90 Astro::Catalog::IO::ASSM (read only)
91 Astro::Catalog::IO::Binary (read only)
92 Astro::Catalog::IO::Cluster
93 Astro::Catalog::IO::FINDOFF
94 Astro::Catalog::IO::FITSTable
95 Astro::Catalog::IO::GaiaPick (read only)
96 Astro::Catalog::IO::JCMT
97 Astro::Catalog::IO::LCOGFITSTable
98 Astro::Catalog::IO::Northstar (read only)
99 Astro::Catalog::IO::RITMatch
100 Astro::Catalog::IO::SExtractor (read only)
101 Astro::Catalog::IO::STL (read only)
102 Astro::Catalog::IO::Simple
103 Astro::Catalog::IO::TST (read only)
104 Astro::Catalog::IO::UKIRTBS (read only)
105 Astro::Catalog::IO::VOTable
106 Astro::Catalog::IO::XY
107 Astro::Catalog::Transport::REST
108 Astro::Catalog::Transport::WebService
109 Astro::Catalog::Query
110 Astro::Catalog::Item::Morphology
111
112The user level query classes inherit from the Astro::Catalog::Transport::XXX
113classes, which in turn all inherit basic functionality from the Query base
114class Astro::Catalog::Query. The Astro::Catalog::IO modules provide pluggable
115polymorphic input/output.
116
117It should be noted that Astro::Catalog::IO::TST, STL, GaiaPick, SExtractor,
118and UKIRTBS do not currently provide a _write_catalog() function, and
119Astrom does not currently provide a _read_catalog() function.
120
121Where can I get it?
122-------------------
123
124The package is available from CPAN <http://www.cpan.org/> and from github
125at https://github.com/timj/perl-Astro-Catalog
126
127Installation
128------------
129
130Installation is automated using the Module::Build library
131
132 % perl Build.PL
133 % ./Build
134 % ./Build test
135 % ./Build install
136
137Authors
138-------
139
140The module was originally written by Alasdair Allan <aa@astro.ex.ac.uk>,
141of the University of Exeter Astrophysics Group (http://www.astro.ex.ac.uk/)
142as part of his work for the eSTAR project.
143
144The internal architecture of the module was extensively rewritten for v3.0
145by Tim Jenness <t.jenness@jach.hawaii.edu> of the Joint Astronomy Centre
146in Hawaii and Alasdair Allan <aa@astro.ex.ac.uk>, of the University of
147Exeter Astrophysics Group. Then rewritten again by Alasdair Allan <aa@astro.ex.ac.uk> for the v4.0 release.
148
149This version also includes patches supplied by Stephen Quinney
150<S.J.Quinney@durham.ac.uk> of Durham University, Tim Lister
151<tlister@lcogt.net> of Las Cumbres Observatory, and Luca Rizzi
152<l.rizzi@jach.hawaii.edu>, Graham Bell <g.bell@jach.hawaii.edu>
153and Brad Cavanagh <b.cavanagh@jach.hawaii.edu> of the Joint Astronomy
154Centre in Hawaii.
155
156License
157-------
158This package is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
159under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the
160Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your
161option) any later version.
162
163This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
164WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY
165or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License
166for more details.
167
168You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along
169with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
17059 Temple Place,Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA
171
README.IO
1
2This lib/Astro/Catalog/IO directory contains the "plugins" for catalogue I/O.
3
4Currently supported formats are:
5
6 Astrom - Starlink's ASTROM input file format, see SUN/5.
7 Cluster - Cluster Collaboration format
8 FINDOFF - Starlink's FINDOFF input/output file format, see SUN/139.
9 GaiaPick - Gaia/SkyCat Pick Object format. The output from a "Pick Object"
10 in GAIA
11 FITSTable - Binary FITS tables.
12 JCMT - JCMT source catalogue
13 SExtractor - ASCII_HEAD output from SExtractor.
14 STL - Starlink's Small Text List format, see SUN/190 and SSN/75
15 Simple - Simple ID, RA, Dec format
16 TST - Tab Separated Table see SSN/75 for more information.
17 UKIRTBS - UKIRT Bright Standard catalogue.
18 VOTable - The new standard for Virtual Observatory interoperability,
19 see http://www.ivoa.net/ for more information
20
21Other catalogue formats that we are considering:
22
23 OASIS - Text format from oasis.
24 http://irsa.ipac.caltech.edu/applications/Oasis/svc/index.html
25