[Kstars-devel] Tycho-2 catalog in Kstars

[Akarsh Simha]

Hi Dennis

> Is there a 'user-guide' document on the Tycho-2 catalog?
>
> I have installed it, but I don't seem to see the stars down to  
> mag-12 that it is supposed to give me.
>
> Is there a way to check whether it is working, or that the file (?)  
> containing this extension is on my (Linux) system?
>
>
> Any info would be appreciated -- I use Kstars all the time!

I'm afraid there isn't any documentation at the moment, and I don't  
know why this would happen.

But here are some pointers to debug the issue:

1. You should have a file called unnamedstars.dat, typically in either  
/usr/share/apps/kstars/ or ~/.kde/share/apps/kstars -- this will give  
you stars to about 8th magnitude including stars that don't have names.

2. If the Tycho-2 downloaded correctly (sometimes, this is the  
problem), you should find a file called deepstars.dat in  
~/.kde/share/apps/kstars. If you don't see it, you might want to retry  
downloading it using the "Download New Data" tool, or, if that fails,  
manually download it from  
http://files.kde.org/edu/kstars/tycho2_mag_12.5-1.1.tar.bz2 and untar  
it (tar xjvf <filename>) to get the deepstars.dat file, and then put  
that file in either ~/.kde/share/apps/kstars or in  
/usr/share/apps/kstars

If you could retrieve any error log indicating why the "Download New  
Data" tool (KNewStuff3 as it's called internally) failed if it did so,  
that would help us / the KNS3 developers to fix the issue.

HTH.

Thanks for your interest in KStars, and thanks for helping us preserve  
dark skies. (I guessed you're part of the IDA from your e-mail address)

Regards
Akarsh