The Orbiting Solar Observatory-I (OSO-8) was launched on 21 June 1975 into a 550 km circular orbit at 33 degrees inclination. Data were obtained from the mission until late September 1978. The spacecraft structure consisted of a rotating cylindrical base section called the "wheel" and a non-spinning upper section called the "sail". While the primary objectives of the mission were solar in nature, there were 3 detectors, the GSFC Cosmic X-ray Spectroscopy experiments (GCXSE detectors A, B, and C), mounted in the rotating wheel which had exclusively non-solar objectives. Their fields-of-view were either aligned to the spin axis or at small angles to it, hence they always view the portion of the sky at right angles to the earth-sun line. This database accesses the pha FITS datafiles for the A, B, and C GCXSE detectors. Data was accumulated every quarter of a rotation period (~2.56 s) for the A detector and every 40.96 s for the B and C detectors in the 2-60 keV energy band. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .
The Orbiting Solar Observatory-I (OSO-8) was launched on 21 June 1975 into a 550 km circular orbit at 33 degrees inclination. Data were obtained from the mission until late September 1978. The spacecraft structure consisted of a rotating cylindrical base section called the "wheel" and a non-spinning upper section called the "sail". While the primary objectives of the mission were solar in nature, there were 3 detectors, the GSFC Cosmic X-ray Spectroscopy experiments (GCXSE detectors A, B and C), mounted in the rotating wheel which had exclusively non-solar objectives. Their fields-of-view were either aligned to the spin axis or at small angles to it, hence they always view the portion of the sky at right angles to the earth-sun line. This database accesses the raw rates FITS datafile for the A, B and C GCXSE detectors, accumulated every 160 ms in the 2-60 keV energy band. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .
Outburst Catalog of Dwarf Novae-type and Other Cataclysmic Variables
Short Name:
DNCVOBCAT
Date:
25 Apr 2025
Publisher:
NASA/GSFC HEASARC
Description:
This outburst catalog contains a wide variety of observational properties for 722 dwarf nova-type (DN) cataclysmic variables (CVs) and 309 CVs of other types from the Catalina Real-time Transient Survey (CRTS). In particular, it includes the apparent outburst and quiescent V-band magnitudes, duty cycles, limits on the recurrence time, upper- and lower-limits on the distance and absolute quiescent magnitudes, color information, orbital parameters, and X-ray counterparts. These properties were determined by means of a classification script presented in the reference paper. The DNs in the catalog show a correlation between the outburst duty cycle and the orbital period (and outburst recurrence time), as well as between the quiescent absolute magnitude and the orbital period (and duty cycle). This is the largest sample of dwarf nova properties collected to date (2016). Besides serving as a useful reference for individual systems and a means of selecting objects for targeted studies, it will prove valuable for statistical studies that aim to shed light on the formation and evolution of cataclysmic variables. The CRTS identifies transients in the data from the Catalina Sky Survey (Larson et al. 1998, BAAS, 30, 1037; 2003, BAAS, 35, 982), a photometric survey that searches for Potentially Hazardous Asteroids and Near Earth Objects. Three sub-surveys constitute the Catalina Sky Survey, namely the original CSS (Catalina Schmidt Survey), the MLS (Mt Lemmon Survey) based in Arizona, and the SSS (Siding Spring Survey) in Australia, which ended on 2014 July 5. The field of view and typical limiting magnitude for each survey (at ~30 s integrations) are 8.2 degrees and V~19.5 mag for the CSS, 1.1 degrees and V~21.5 mag for the MLS, and 4 degrees and V~19 mag for the SSS. Together, these surveys cover 30, 000 deg<sup>2</sup> between -70 and +70 degrees Declination (see Drake et al. 2014, MNRAS, 441, 1186 for more details). The entire zone within 15 Degrees of the Galactic Plane is avoided due to overcrowding, as are the Magellanic Clouds. The properties of the cataclysmic variables in this catalog are derived from the long-term optical light curves from the CRTS, as well as magnitudes, fluxes and orbital parameters from the SDSS, 2MASS, UKIDSS, ROSAT, Chandra, XMM and WISE catalogs, and from the Catalog of Cataclysmic Binaries, Low-Mass X-Ray Binaries and Related Objects (RKCat: Ritter and Kolb 2003, A&A, 404, 301, available at the HEASARC as the RITTERCV, RITTERLMXB and RITTERRBIN tables). This table was created by the HEASARC in October 2017 based on the <a href="https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/ftp/cats/J/MNRAS/456/4441">CDS catalog J/MNRAS/456/4441</a> file catalog.dat. . This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .
Owens Valley Radio Observatory 40-m 31-GHZ Radio Source Catalog
Short Name:
OVRO31GHZ
Date:
25 Apr 2025
Publisher:
NASA/GSFC HEASARC
Description:
The 100m Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT) and the 40m Owens Valley Radio Observatory (OVRO) telescope have been used to conduct a 31-GHz survey of 3165 known extragalactic radio sources over 143 deg<sup>2</sup> of the sky. Target sources were selected from the NRAO VLA Sky Survey (NVSS) in fields observed by the Cosmic Background Imager (CBI); most are extragalactic active galactic nuclei (AGNs) with 1.4-GHz flux densities of 3-10 mJy. Using a maximum-likelihood analysis to obtain an unbiased estimate of the distribution of the 1.4 - 31 GHz spectral indices of these sources, the authors find a mean 31 - 1.4 GHz flux ratio of 0.110 +/- 0.003 corresponding to a spectral index alpha = -0.71+/-0.01 (S<sub>nu</sub> ~ nu<sup>alpha</sup>); 9.0% +/- 0.8% of the sources have alpha > -0.5 and 1.2% +/- 0.2% have alpha > 0. By combining this spectral-index distribution with 1.4GHz source counts, the authors predict 31-GHz source counts in the range 1 mJy <S<sub>31</sub> < 4 mJy, N(>S<sub>31</sub>) = (16.7+/-1.7)deg<sup>-2</sup>(S<sub>31</sub>/1mJy)<sup>(-0.80+/-0.07)</sup>. In this study, the authors present a detailed characterization of the impact of the discrete source foreground on arcminute-scale 31-GHz anisotropy measurements based upon two observational campaigns. The first campaign (the results of which are given in this table) was carried out with the OVRO 40m telescope at 31 GHz from 2000 September through 2002 December. The second campaign (the results of which are given in the GBT31GHZ table) used the GBT from 2006 February to May. A companion paper (Sievers et al. 2009arXiv0901.4540S) presents the five-year CBI total intensity power spectrum incorporating the results of the point-source measurements discussed here. Reported error bars include a 10% and 5% rms gain uncertainty for GBT and OVRO measurements, respectively. Sources detected at greater than 4 sigma at 31 GHz are flagged (detection_flag = 'Y'); for this calculation, the random gain uncertainty was excluded. In all 3165 sources were observed. The GBT catalog (the HEASARC GBT31GHZ table) contains 1490 sources. Of the 2315 useful OVRO observations many of the non-detections (and a few detections) were superceded by more sensitive GBT observations; the OVRO catalog contained in the present table therefore contains data on 1675 sources. The detection rate of the OVRO measurements was 11%, and that of the GBT measurements 25%. In all, 18% of the sources were detected at 31 GHz. This table was created by the HEASARC in June 2012 based on CDS Catalpog J/ApJ/704/1433 file table2.dat. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .
Palomar-Green Catalog of UV-Excess Stellar Objects
Short Name:
PG
Date:
25 Apr 2025
Publisher:
NASA/GSFC HEASARC
Description:
The Palomar-Green Catalog of UV-Excess Stellar Objects provides positions (the original_ra and original_dec parameters) accurate to about 8 arcsec in each coordinate, photographic B-magnitudes accurate to 0.29 mag, spectral types, some cross-references, and photoelectric broad-band, multichannel, and Stroemgren colors when available. Of the 1874 objects in the catalog as published in 1986 (1878 in this version), 1715 comprise a statistically complete sample covering 10714 square degrees from 266 fields taken on the Palomar 18-inch Schmidt telescope. Limiting magnitudes vary from field to field, ranging from 15.49 to 16.67. The overall completeness is estimated to be 84%, but that figure and the relative contributions of magnitude, color, and accidental errors vary depending on the magnitude and color distribution of the spectroscopic subsample. The dominant population in this catalog is that of the hot, hydrogen-atmosphere subdwarfs, the sdB stars, which comprise nearly 40 per cent of the sample. The hot white dwarfs of spectral types DA, DB, and DO account for 21, 2.8, and 1.0 per cent of the sample, respectively, while cooler DC or DZ white dwarfs add another 1.2 per cent. Cataclysmic variables and composite-spectrum binaries account for 5 per cent, although many other spectra dominated by a hot star showed evidence for a cool companion at red wavelengths. Planetary nebulae central stars account for another 0.5 per cent. Extragalactic objects comprise about 9 per cent of the complete sample, with QSOs representing 5.4 per cent. Only 0.3 per cent (6 objects) remain with totally unsatisfactory or unknown spectral classes. (Notice that all of these percentage estimates are based on the published version of this catalog, and that the values in the current online version may be slightly different, as the latter includes a small number of updates and additions). In 2009, an additional data resource was added to this catalog by CDS, namely a file containing more accurate (sub-arcsecond) positions and V magnitudes (the skiff_vmag parameter), and also additional comments (the skiff_comments parameter). This new material has now been included in the HEASARC version of the PG Catalog. A full discussion of this addition can be found at <a href="http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/ftp/cats/II/207A/pg_2009.txt">http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/ftp/cats/II/207A/pg_2009.txt</a>. This database was initially made available at the HEASARC in June 1998 based on the <a href="https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/ftp/cats/II/207A">CDS catalog II/207A</a> file catalog.dat which had been last updated on Oct 17 1997. In 2017, the HEASARC re-ingested this CDS catalog as it had been updated several times in the interim, notably in 2009 when an additional file (pg_pos.dat) with precise coordinates and comments provided by Brian Skiff was added. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .
The Palomar/Michigan State University Catalogue contains basic data for 1971 stars confirmed by the authors to be late K or M main-sequence stars with absolute visual magnitudes of 8.0 or fainter taken from Tables 1A of papers I and II and Table 1D of paper I. Note that known degenerates have been excluded from this sample. All but 6 of these these star were selected from the Catalogue of Nearby Stars (Gliese & Jahreiss, "Preliminary Version of the Third Catalogue of Nearby Stars", CNS3), and most (88%) lie within 25 parsecs. This online catalog was created by the HEASARC in July 1999 based on tables obtained from the ADC/CDS data centers. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .
The PMN database contains data from the Parkes-MIT-NRAO (PMN) Southern, Zenith, Tropical and Equatorial surveys. These surveys were made using the Parkes 64-m radio telescope at a frequency of 4850 Hz with the NRAO multibeam receiver mounted at the prime focus (for a full description of the observations see Griffith & Wright, 1993, Paper I). These surveys had a spatial resolution (full width half-maximum: FWHM) of approximately 4.2 arcminutes and were made during 1990 June and November. The PMN surveys were divided into several zones. These zones are listed below, together with approximate flux limits and survey areas: <pre> Zone Name DEC limits (degrees) Flux limits Area (sr) SOUTHERN -87.5< dec <-37 20 to 50 mJy 2.50 ZENITH -37 < dec <-29 72 mJy 0.67 TROPICAL -29 < dec < -9.5 42 mJy 2.01 EQUATORIAL -9.5< dec <+10.0 40 mJy 1.90 </pre> A point source catalog was compiled directly from each of the survey zones by using an optimum filter method, as described by Griffith & Wright in detail in Paper 1. In addition, a set of images was produced for each zone in a manner very similar to that used by Condon et al. for the northern survey (<a href="https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/ftp/cats/VIII/40">CDS Catalog VIII/40</a>): See e.g. Paper 4. These maps have an effective resolution (FWHM) of about 5 arcmin. For more details, refer to the publications listed in the References Section for the relevant zone. This updated version of the PMN database was created by the HEASARC in January 2001 based on <a href="https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/ftp/cats/VIII/38">CDS Catalog VIII/38</a>. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .
The Parkes Multibeam (PM) Pulsar Survey uses the 20 cm multibeam receiver system and multibeam filter banks, digitizer and data-acquisition system to survey a region within |b| < 5 degrees in the inner Galactic plane for pulsars, many of which will be young and/or short-period. This survey is a factor of 7 times more sensitive to young and distant pulsars than that of Johnston et al. (1992, MNRAS, 255, 401) which detected 100 pulsars. The present source list contains pulsars that have been newly discovered in the course of this survey. The PM Survey is specifically targeted for (i) obscured regions of the Galactic plane, (ii) young pulsars,and (iii) binary pulsars with massive companions. As of August 1999, analysis of about 50% of the total expected data to be collected has resulted in the confirmed detection of over 400 new pulsars (an increase of more than 50% of the known population). Here are some of the features of the PM Survey: <pre> Survey Area: -260 < l < 50 deg , -5 < b < 5 deg Center Frequency: 1374 MHz Bandwidth: 288 MHz (96 channels x 3 MHz per channel x 2 polarizations) Sampling Rate: 0.25 ms x 1 bit per channel Integration Time: 35 min per pointing (13 beams per pointing) Data Storage: DLT tape (about 35 GB per tape) Sensitivity: about 7 times better than previous 400 MHz surveys </pre> This database table was initially created by the HEASARC in December 2001 and revised in March 2002. The contents of the table are based on the file <a href="http://www.atnf.csiro.au/research/pulsar/pmsurv/pmpsrs.db">http://www.atnf.csiro.au/research/pulsar/pmsurv/pmpsrs.db</a> on the authors' website. The HEASARC table will be updated on a weekly basis whenever the original table is updated. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .
Parkes Southern Radio Source Catalog, Version 1.01
Short Name:
Parkes
Date:
25 Apr 2025
Publisher:
NASA/GSFC HEASARC
Description:
PKSCAT90 is the Parkes Catalog (1990) and consists of radio and optical data for 8,264 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 (see below). This version of the Parkes Radio Source Catalog is entitled "PKSCAT90 Version 1.01." The original Parkes radio catalog 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 catalog. 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 catalog 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 radio sources. 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 catalog 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 catalog 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. The author Alan Wright notes 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' catalog like PKSCAT90. For both the Northern and Southern hemispheres, superior and deeper finding surveys now exist: the 87GB catalog in the North (Gregory and Condon et al. 1991, ApJ, 75, 1011, <a href="https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/ftp/cats/VIII/14">CDS Catalog VIII/14</a>) and the PMN catalogs (Griffith and Wright 1993, AJ, 105, 1666, <a href="https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/ftp/cats/VIII/38">CDS Catalog VIII/38</a>, available at the HEASARC as the PMN table) in the South." This table was updated by the HEASARC in July 2015 based on <a href="https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/ftp/cats/VIII/15">CDS Catalog VIII/15</a> file pkscat90.dat, replacing a version based on the original (version 1) PKSCAT90, which was created in 1995. It was further updated in September 2015 as noted in the "Version 1.01 Modifications" section above. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .
The initial Phoenix Deep Survey (PDS) observations with the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) have been supplemented by additional 1.4 GHz observations over the past few years. Here we present details of the construction of a new mosaic image covering an area of 4.56 deg<sup>2</sup> referred to as the Phoenix Deep field (PDF), an investigation of the reliability of the source measurements, and the 1.4 GHz source counts for the compiled radio catalog. The mosaic achieves a 1-sigma rms noise of 12 µJy at its most sensitive, and a homogeneous radio-selected catalog of over 2000 sources reaching flux densities as faint as 60 µJy has been compiled. The source parameter measurements are found to be consistent with the expected uncertainties from the image noise levels and the Gaussian source fitting procedure. A radio-selected sample avoids the complications of obscuration associated with optically selected samples, and by utilizing complementary PDS observations, including multicolor optical, near-infrared, and spectroscopic data, this radio catalog will be used in a detailed investigation of the evolution in star formation spanning the redshift range 0 < z < 1. The homogeneity of the catalog ensures a consistent picture of galaxy evolution can be developed over the full cosmologically significant redshift range of interest. The PDF covers a high-latitude region that is of low optical obscuration and devoid of bright radio sources. ATCA 1.4 GHz observations were made in 1994, 1997, 1999, 2000, and 2001 in the 6A, 6B, and 6C array configurations, accumulating a total of 523 hr of observing time. The initial 1994 ATCA observations (Hopkins et al. 1998, MNRAS, 296, 839; Hopkins 1998, PhD thesis) consisted of 30 pointings on a hexagonal tessellation, resulting in a 2 degrees diameter field centered on R.A. = 01<sup>h</sup> 14<sup>m</sup> 12.16<sup>s</sup>, Dec = -45<sup>o</sup> 44' 8.0" (J2000.0), with roughly uniform sensitivity of about 60 µJy rms. This survey was supplemented from 1997 to 2001 by extensive observations of a further 19 pointings situated on a more finely spaced hexagonal grid, centered on R.A. = 01<sup>h</sup> 11<sup>m</sup> 13.0<sup>s</sup>, Dec = -45<sup>o</sup> 45' 00" (J2000.0). The locations of all pointing centers are given in Table 1 of the reference paper. The final mosaic constructed from all 49 pointings was trimmed to remove the highest noise regions at the edges by masking out regions with an rms noise level greater than 0.25 mJy. The trimmed PDF mosaic image covers an area of 4.56 deg<sup>2</sup> and reaches to a measured level of 12 µJy rms noise in the most sensitive regions. The table contained here is the final merged catalog of PDS surveys based on the union of the 10% false discovery rate (FDR) threshold catalog (PDS_atca_fdr10_full_vis.cat) for the trimmed mosaic, visually edited to remove objects clearly associated with artifacts close to bright sources, containing 2058 sources, and the 10% FDR threshold catalog (PDS_atca_fdr10_deep.cat) for the 33' x 33' region centered on the most sensitive portion of the mosaic, containing 491 sources. The merged catalog was constructed to contain all unique catalogued sources; where common sources were identified, only the entry from PDS_atca_fdr10_deep.cat was retained. There are a total of 2148 sources in the final merged catalog, of which up to 10% may be false. This table was created by the HEASARC in November 2012 based on the file PDS_atca_fdr10_merge.cat, the merged PDS catalog (derived from the individual catalogs PDS_atca_fdr10_full_vis.cat and PDS_atca_fdr10_deep.cat as discussed in the Overview above), which was obtained from the first author's website <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20171009234923/www.physics.usyd.edu.au/~ahopkins/phoenix/">https://web.archive.org/web/20171009234923/www.physics.usyd.edu.au/~ahopkins/phoenix/</a>. Some of the values for the name parameter in the HEASARC's implementation of this table were corrected in April 2018. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .
