[Kstars-devel] Poor quality of data in kstars main catalog?

[Massimiliano "Max Negro" Masserelli]

I'm in the process of introducing kstars to a local observatory for
telescope control. While testing accuracy, I found some problems in
pointing (with a 2000mm reflector with 40cm mirror). So I started
looking at coordinates stored in catalog, and found "many" errors.

In particular, Arcturus (alp Boo) has RA 14 15 40.35 Dec 19 11 14.17
J2000. If you have a look at simbad
(http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/sim-basic?Ident=arcturus&submit=SIMBAD+search ) you'll see it should have RA 14 15 39.6720 Dec +19 10 56.677. I then looked at Hipparcos via Vizier (http://vizier.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/VizieR-S?HIP%2069673) and found that it shows the same coords as kstars, only in J1991.25 epoch (last batch of data on page, as follows):

...
RAhms	14 15 40.35	 	Right ascension in h m s, ICRS (J1991.25) (H3)
(pos.eq.ra;meta.main)
DEdms	+19 11 14.2	 	Declination in deg ' ", ICRS (J1991.25) (H4)
(pos.eq.dec;meta.main)
...

I tried with a few other objects, and many were in the same conditions,
save a few (Albireo, at least, as you can see in
http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/sim-basic?Ident=albireo&submit=SIMBAD
+search ).

Deep sky objects seems inaccurate, too, but I wasn't able to find an
hint on why...

Thank you very for your attention.
-- 
Massimiliano "Max Negro" Masserelli <negro at interim.it>