A decade of galaxy catalogs
Wednesday June 3, 2009
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| Example screenshot of Cartes du Ciel v3.0 beta displaying the PGC galaxies in the region of M84. |
It is hard to believe that this marks the tenth year and 11th revision of the PGC/LEDA galaxy catalog for Cartes du Ciel. I vaguely remember this being a "let’s see if I can do this" project that has never ended. I think it speaks volumes to the quality and usefulness of the Cartes du Ciel software. The vast majority of freeware is long dead after a decade.
The PGC/LEDA 2009 Galaxy Catalog includes entries for 1,708,809 galaxies extracted from the HyperLEDA database on June 1, 2009. Additionally, I have compiled a smaller PGC/LEDA 2009 Visual Galaxy Catalog containing 114,460 galaxies with a mean B magnitude of 16.5 or brighter and a major axis of 3 arcsec or larger. This catalog is intended for those users who wish to have a catalog of galaxies that are visually within the range of most amateur instruments or those who want to save hard drive space (6MB versus 92MB).
If you like this catalog and would like to contribute to its continued revision and release, please send a donation to the local astronomy club of your choice or volunteer your time to an astronomy outreach program in your area. Also reference the use of this catalog in your work, see the HyperLEDA site for guidance on how to cite this data.











Jeff Burton








