Near Star Catalogue

A New Nomenclature for Nearby Stars

This page (and the accompanying updated catalogue) promotes a new nomenclature for nearby stars. It is inspired by variable designation which, once the letters are exhausted, consist of V (e.g. V645 Centauri): in the same way, nearby stars are to be designated by N (e.g. N1 Centauri). Component letters may follow: in this way, Proxima Centauri's designation becomes N1 Centauri C. It is hoped that these designations would be used in preference to previous catalogue designations (e.g. GJ/Gl, NS, both of which were complicated for different reasons).

Designations are assigned as follows:

• The Sun is N0 [that's a zero], without any following constellation name;
• Stars in the original database are grouped by constellation and numbered from 1 in order of increasing distance (according to the best available estimate at the time: the relationship between number and distance is not of ultimate importance). Once assigned, these designations are not modified nor removed by updated parallaxes.
  
  
  e.g. the Alpha Centauri system is N1 Centauri (components A-C); N2 Centauri is GJ 3737 / LHS 337. 2MASS J18450541-6357475 may now conveniently be referred to as N1 Pavonis.
• When a new star is eligible for inclusion (through the publication of a reliable trigonometric parallax >= 40mas), it will be numbered to its constellation, taking the next available designation (regardless of distance order etc).

History

Stars that are designated as being 'nearby' are usually those within 25 parsecs of the Sun, with distances able to be measured by accurate parallaxes. First there was Gliese & co. with the Catalogue of Nearby Stars (CNS)^1. Then in 1998 a similar project was begun at Northern Arizona University, called NSTARS, but it disappeared a few years ago. A copy I made in late 2006 is attached to this page in csv format.

I'm pleased to release my unofficial update of the NSTARS catalogue, entitled the Near Star Catalogue. It proposes a new nomenclature for nearby stars that I hope will be adopted. Stars that have been shown to lie well beyond the 25pc limit have been removed; stars which lie near the limit have been retained and designated, though they may prove to lie just outside the limit.

I acknowledge the hard work done by the NSTARS team to compile the original database. Thank you also to the folks at SIMBAD, the RECONS team, Frederick Pilcher who transcribed the Uranometria Argentina, to Dr. Carolin Liefke of the University of Hamburg (see her NEXXUS database), and to Ken Slatten, whose corrections to the original NSTARS database have been passed on to me.

Click here to see blog posts on this topic.

File Format

This file is comma-delimited.

Column	Field	Description
0	#	Row number only.
1	N*	Identifier (see above)
2	Name	Name (or other identifier)
3	Bayer	Bayer/Lacaille  designation
4	Flamsteed	Flamsteed number
5	Gould	Gould number
6	Var ID	Variable designation
7	GJ	Gliese Catalogue ID
8	LHS	Luyten Half Second Catalogue ID
9	PLX	Trigonometric Parallax Catalogue ID
10	HIP	Hipparcos Catalogue ID
11	Giclas	Giclas Catalogue ID
12	DM	BD/CD/CP ID
13	HD	HD number
14	HR	HR number (Bright Star Catalogue)
15	RA (2000.0)	Right Ascension (2000.0)
16	dec (2000.0)	Declination (2000.0)
17	plx	Parallax
18	plxerr	Parallax error
19	parsecs	Distance (parsecs)
20	APM	Annual Proper Motion
21	PosA	PM Position Angle
22	MURAT
23	MUDEC
24	U	Magnitudes
25	B
26	V
27	R
28	I
29	J
30	H
31	K
32	M	Absolute magnitude
33	RV	Radial velocity
34	Spec	Spectral type
35	Notes	Notes
36	NS	Original or updated/corrected NSTARS id. Do not use: for information only.

Download
I have several files for download:

1. ns.csv: The original NSTARS database, circa 2006. This formed the basis for the current catalogue;
2. nsc.csv. The latest Near Star Catalogue, in the format describe above;
3. nstars_planets.csv. Some exo-planets that were included in the original NSTARS database. These were not retained in the Near Star Catalogue;
4. removed.csv. Stars from the original NSTARS catalogue, where post-Hipparcos research has shown that they lie well beyond the 25pc limit. These have been removed and undesignated in the NSC.

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¹. The Gliese Catalogue of Nearby Stars (CNS) pioneered this work in the 1950s, until in 1991 a "preliminary" version of the 3rd catalogue (CNS3) was released. Many stars were unnumbered by the author, and though others later assigned numbers that are now included in SIMBAD, some astronomers prefer not to use these later designations. A 4th edition (CNS4), referred to in some papers and taking into account data from the Hipparcos satellite, is still unpublished.