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PKSCAT90

Detailed Description of Catalogue VIII/15/

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VIII/15         Parkes Radio Sources Catalogue (PKSCAT90)  (Wright+ 1990)
================================================================================
Parkes Radio Sources Catalogue, Version 1.01
    Wright A.E. and Otrupcek R.
   <Australia Telescope National Facility, Parkes (1990)>
================================================================================
ADC_Keywords: Radio sources - 685

Description:
    PKSCAT90 consists of radio and optical data for 8264 radio sources.
    It covers essentially all the sky south of declination +27 degrees but
    largely excludes the Galactic Plane and the Magellanic Cloud regions.
    The latter zones have been the subject of other, specialist surveys.
    A few data errors in Version 1.00 have been corrected in the present
    edition. This version of the Parkes Radio source Catalogue entitled
    "PKSCAT90 Version 1.01" is intended for use on IBM PC-type machines.
Note by A. Wright:
    Users should note that PKSCAT90 was produced at a time when relational
    databases were in their infancy. In the future we anticipate making
    the individual data sources available separately --- through such
    search systems as SIMBAD --- rather than in an "omnibus" catalogue
    like PKSCAT90. For both the Northern and Southern hemispehre, superior
    and deeper finding surveys now exist: the 87GB Catalog in the North,
    (Condon et al., catalog VIII/14) and the PMN catalogues (Griffith
    and Wright, catalog VIII/38) in the South.

File Summary:

FileName Lrecl Records Explanations
ReadMe 80 . This file pkscat90 172 8264 The Catalogue refs 121 164 References
Byte-by-byte Description of file: pkscat90
Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
1- 10 A10 --- Bname B1950 source name 11- 17 A7 --- Alias Alias/other catalogue names 18- 19 I2 h RAh Right Ascension B1950.0 (hours) 21- 22 I2 min RAm Right Ascension B1950.0 (minutes) 24- 27 F4.1 s RAs Right Ascension B1950.0 (seconds) 28 A1 --- DE- Declination B1950.0 (sign) 29- 30 I2 deg DEd Declination B1950.0 (degrees) 32- 33 I2 arcmin DEm Declination B1950.0 (minutes) 35- 36 I2 arcsec DEs Declination B1950.0 (seconds) 37- 40 A4 --- Ident Identification (1) 41- 44 A4 mag Mag ? Magnitude (the format is either F4.1 or F4.2) 45- 49 A5 --- z Redshift (z) or Year.Month for which an optical spectrum was obtained, but from which a definite redshift could not be determined (thus, 83.07 refers to 1983 July) 50- 54 A5 Jy S80 Flux density at 80 MHz 55- 59 A5 Jy S178 Flux density at 178 MHz 60- 64 A5 Jy S408 Flux density at 408 MHz 65- 69 A5 Jy S635 Flux density at 635 MHz 70- 74 A5 Jy S1410 Flux density at 1410 MHz 75- 79 A5 Jy S2700 Flux density at 2700 MHz 80- 84 A5 Jy S5000 Flux density at 5000 MHz 85- 89 A5 Jy S8400 Flux density at 8400 MHz 90- 94 A5 Jy S22000 Flux density at 22000 MHz 95- 96 I2 h RAh2000 Right Ascension J2000 (hours) 98- 99 I2 min RAm2000 Right Ascension J2000 (minutes) 101-107 F7.4 s RAs2000 Right Ascension J2000 (seconds) 108 A1 --- DE-2000 Declination J2000 (sign) 109-110 I2 deg DEd2000 Declination J2000 (degrees) 112-113 I2 arcmin DEm2000 Declination J2000 (minutes) 115-120 F6.3 arcsec DEs2000 Declination J2000 (seconds) 121-130 A10 --- Jname J2000 Name 131-135 A5 arcsec errPos positional accuracy in arcsec. (to be read as "better than") 136-155 A20 --- RefID reference code for Identification (see file refs) 156-175 A20 --- RefZ reference code for redshifts (see file refs)
Note (1) : Beginning with this version of the catalogue, new identification and field classification codes have been used, mainly for the unidentified or "blank-field" sources. The following table lists both the new and the old codes. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Code Description Old Code ------------------------------------------------------------------- ===> Identified sources: BLC BL Lacertae object BLC D Diffuse galaxy, bright galaxies in clusters D DB Double galaxy DB E Elliptical Galaxy E G Galaxy too faint to classify G HII HII region HII IRR Irregular object IRR N N galaxy, bright cored galaxy N PN Planetary Nebular PN Q Quasi-stellar object or Quasar (confirmed) Q QC Quasar with a continuous optical spectrum QC S Spiral galaxy S SB Barred Spiral galaxy SB Sc Spiral galaxy (type C) SC SNR SuperNova Remnant SNR S0 Spiral galaxy with ellipticity of zero S0 (nearly circular) * Stellar object of neutral colour IIIS in good positional agreement with the radio source ===> Unidentified Sources Xg one or more galaxies in the area II covered by the position error of the source but no identification claimed Xs blank field: one or more stars of normal colour III in the error box Xsa blank field: obscured by absorption IIIA X blank field: no absorption apparent IIIB Xs+ blank field: crowded star field IIIC Xa blank field: heavily obscured. IV ------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE: a ? following any code specifies that that property is uncertain ------------------------------------------------------------------- ================================================================================ Notes from H. Andernach (hja@hja.vilspa.esa.es a) The source B0000-177 is NOT 3C465 b) The last source B0420-086 is MISPLACED
Further notes on June 28, 1993: BE66b BE66b is AuJP 19, 275 (not p. 27) W67 is MN 135, p. 339 (not p.24) History: The original Parkes radio catalogue was compiled from major radio surveys with the Parkes radiotelescope at frequencies of 408 MHz and 2700 MHz. This work spanned a period of nearly 20 years and was undertaken largely by John Bolton and his colleagues. Since then, improved positions, optical identifications and redshifts have been obtained for many of the sources in the Catalogue. Furthermore, flux densities at several frequencies have supplemented the original surveys so that the measurements now cover the frequency range 80 - 22,000 MHz. However coverage at the highest frequencies is still sparse. Important contributions to the usefulness of the catalogue have been radio data from the Molonglo 408 MHz survey and the 80 MHz Culgoora measurements of Slee et al. PKSCAT90 should thus be regarded as a compendium of radio and optical data about southern radiosources. However, at the moment, it contains only sources originally found in the Parkes 2700 MHz Survey (see e.g. Part 14, Bolton et al, 1979, Aust J Phys, Astrophys Suppl, No. 46 and references therein) The original radio survey data of the Catalogue and the optical identifications have been published in a series of papers in the Australian Journal of Physics (see above reference). The associated optical spectral data on which redshifts were obtained has also been published, mainly in Astrophysical Journal and Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. About the completeness levels of the Catalogue in various parts of the sky: users should note that the sky zone between -4 and +4 degrees has been the subject of a re-survey and is now complete to 0.25 Jy. About PKSCAT90: The PKSCAT90 database is made available for astronomical research purposes at a cost of $40.00 to cover the cost of floppy disks, packing and postage. However we request that users acknowledge their use of the catalogue data in publications as: Parkes Catalogue, 1990, Australia Telescope National Facility The New Version Of The Catalogue: This catalogue differs in several important ways from the older (VAX/VMS only) version (which we shall refer to as "PKSCAT85") in that: 1. It has a different and more compact structure than PKSCAT85 and thus takes up less disc space. 2. It contains J2000 (FK5) positions and names. This is the IAU-preferred system. Generally the B1950 data is for convenience only and is given to a limited precision of 1 arcsec. 3. Improved positions for many sources have been included. Following the J2000 position is an explicit upper limit to the positional accuracy in arcsecs. 5. The new catalogue contains 8400MHz fluxes from recent Parkes measurements of around 1100 of the stronger sources. 6. References to identifications and redshifts are available for some sources in the catalogue. The codes placed after the J2000 position can be used to refer to sources in a table at the end of this information. About Names: In the past, Parkes source names have been given in a format similar to: 1934-638 Unfortunately this is inconsistent with the IAU recommendations as to nomenclature (see e.g. Dickel et al, 1987, A & A Suppl. 68, 75-80 or
http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/iau-spec.html) since: (i) it doesn't specify the Equinox and Equator (e.g. B1950 or J2000) of the position from which the name is derived and (ii) decimal fractions of degrees are not permitted in the "declination-part" of the name However, because they are so widely used, we have kept the existing nomenclature for all "1950-type" names, but include a B in front of them. The J2000 names are given as: J1229+0203 where the letter signifies J2000 equinox and equator (FK5-type position), the next 4 digits are the hours and minutes of right ascension and the sign and final digits are the degrees and minutes of declination. Thus, the source 3C273 in the new system will be referred to as: PKSB1226+023 or PKSJ1229+0203 if the observatory designation is important or, more informally, B1226+023 or J1229+0203 The latter style of naming has been adopted for the catalogue software. For the Future: In the future, the catalogue will be expanded to include extra information from: new radio surveys, new identifications, many more references, improved positions and variability of fluxes. Furthermore we propose to extend the coverage of the Catalogue northward of +27 degrees declination using data from the northern surveys so as eventually to produce an all-sky, "Master" radio catalogue. Most importantly, we would very much like to receive references to pre-print and published information which supersedes or augments data in the present catalogue. Please assist by sending such material to: Alan Wright & Robina Otrupcek, PKSCAT Project ATNF, Parkes P.O. Box 276 PARKES NSW 2870 Australia Alternatively we can be contacted by E-MAIL on: PKSCAT@ATPARKES.RP.CSIRO.AU Next, in addition to the IBM/ PC version, a mainframe version of PKSCAT90 is now available in VAX/VMS format together with suitable interrogation and report generating programs. We are also preparing an Apple Macintosh version of PKSCAT90 for those users who have access to the FileMaker database program. Distribution is planned for later this year. The handling and postage prices will be the same as for the PC version. Finally, we are preparing a Radio Atlas of the southern sky using data from the PKSCAT90 database. This will be in a similar format to the optical, "Norton's" star atlas and should be available by 1 August 1990. Alan Wright & Robina Otrupcek 10 May 1990 ================================================================================ (End) Alan Wright [Parkes], Francois Ochsenbein [CDS] 10-May-1996
CDS Catalogue Service