Mapping Toolbox    
readfk5

Read the Fifth Fundamental Catalog of Stars

Syntax

Background

The Fifth Fundamental Catalog of Stars (FK5), Parts I and II, is a compilation of data on more than 4500 stars. The catalog contains positions, errors in positions, proper motions, and characteristics such as magnitudes, spectral types, parallaxes, and radial velocities. There are also cross-references to the identities of stars in other catalogs. It was compiled by researchers at the Astronomisches Rechen-Institut in Heidelberg.

Description

struc = readfk5(filename) reads the FK5 file and returns the contents in a structure. Each star is an element in the structure, with the different data items stored in appropriately named fields.

struc = readfk5(filename,struc) appends the data in the file to the existing structure, struc.

Remarks

Positions are given in terms of right ascension and declination. The section entitled "Astronomical Data" in Chapter 8 of the Mapping Toolbox User's Guide shows how to convert these to latitude and longitude for display by the Mapping Toolbox.

The Fifth Fundamental Catalog of Stars (FK5), Parts I and II, is available over the Internet by anonymous FTP at the following:

The readme files have more complete descriptions of the data.

Examples

See Also
dms2deg
Convert angles from deg:min:sec to degrees
hms2hr
Convert time from hrs:min:sec to hours
scatterm
Construct a thematic map with proportional symbols

References

See references [5] and [6] in the Bibliography located at the end of this chapter.


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