[Kstars-devel] Question

[Akarsh Simha]

Hi Fabien

>    I am doing a small chart atlas generation forms using php & html. My
>    (quite far) goal is to generate a user defined star atlas by writing pdf
>    files, depending on the user taste and needs, and perhaps scope aperture
>    or other funny things.
> 
>    I am for now using only BSC and SAGUARO catalogs, and also constellation
>    boundaries, like many do. I was asking myself if I could use some job
>    already done inside kstars. What is your inside catalog format, is it
>    usable as a standalone catalog source and well documented? If so could you
>    tell me how it works or when to view some docs?
> 
>    For my own needs, I am doing a two pass job. The first one is to fill a
>    SQLite DB (single file) by parsing original text base catalog files. Then
>    I do sql requests to retreive needed RA/DEC/Magnitude object type of data.
>    I don't think my way to do this job could interest anybody else, but in
>    case. The DB system can be tuned (index and so on) to be more relevant
>    than my code to retreive needed data quickly.

As far as stars are concerned, I have the entire USNO catalog in text
files (which is HUGE) and on a MySQL database (hopefully). I should be
able to send them across. 

You might otherwise want parse the binary USNO catalog we have for
download http://download.kde.org/apps/kstars/USNO-NOMAD-1e8-1.0.tar.gz

The format is documented in data/README.binfileformat
Some additional info in skycomponents/README.stars should be useful

The reading of the binary file is done explicitly in
StarBlockList::fillToMag() in skycomponents/starblocklist.cpp You
should also take a look at binfilehelper.cpp and
skycomponents/starcomponent.cpp

As far as the deep-sky object catalogs are concerned, you are better
off using SAC. I can give you a SQL dump of SAC in case you need the
same :)

It's a really nice program you're writing! :) I hope you plan to open
source the machinery?

Regards
Akarsh