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How Come Certain Significant Stars Are Missing From Search? (Answer: Search First Official Designations - Read On!)

Hello everyone,
I'm very amateur when it comes to this SNPro 8 software and still trying to get a good handle on controlling and configuring it.  I don't have a telescope.

I realize there are trillions of stars out there and a catalog of all would exceed 1,000s of the largest of hard drives combined, not to mention all the man-centuries to catalog all of them.  That's not reasonable.
However, I would expect to see at least the 1,000 largest and most massive known stars in the database and with a Go There link.

Two in particular that seem to be missing:
UY Scuti/UY Sct (largest) is searchable but when you try to right-click, there is no Go There link.
R136a1 (most massive) seems not to be there at all.

Steve Sybesma
Brighton, CO

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9 comments

  • 1
    Avatar
    Dlucas

    Hi Steve. For UY Scuti, try searching for it as TYC5698-5176-1. It seems that the search feature is rather single-minded in SNPro 8. It will only "find" objects relative to the designation listed *first* for a target. This confounded me, for example, recently, as I worked my way through the Caldwell Catalog. There are a couple of dozen objects that SNP8 will "find" when we use Caldwell disignations. But not many. For UY Scuti, I just checked Simbad for the Tycho identifier and - bam - there it was.

    Same for R1 36a1. You would have to search for TYC9163-960-1. Would I rather SNP8 find ALL designations? Sure. But I bet the developers are going to respond, "It would slow the search down to a snail's pace." I love the speed of searching in SNP8. So ... Sigh. I guess I put up with finding the right designation JUST so all my other searches will be lightning fast.

     

    Hope that helps.

     

    Doug

  • 1
    Avatar
    steve

    Hello Doug,

    Thanks for your reply.

    Both Tycho IDs were searchable as was the name "UY Sct" (UY Scuti)

    But the main point was that neither one offered a "Go There" link which would have resulted in a large star opening up on the screen.

    How do I get a Go There link and an image to show for those?

    Given those two are the largest and most massive stars known, neither one is adequately represented and not sure why.

    Steve

     

  • 1
    Avatar
    Dlucas

    Hi Steve. What version of SNP do you have? When I search for each of those objects by the tyc catalog designation:

    • TYC5698-5176-1 and
    • TYC9163-960-1

    then right-click on the result, in each case, I'm shown the context menu choice, "Center," which allows me to center on the star - and it's there in the center of the screen, labeled exactly as all other targets are. Of course, I'm running Starry Night Pro Plus, but I don't think the "plus" adds any extra star searches -- just the photorealistic night sky background.

    So I'm confused why the word, "Center," doesn't show up in yours.

  • 1
    Avatar
    steve

    Hello Doug,

    Starry Night Pro 8 is what I registered about a week ago.  I'm not looking for "Center" as I always see that, I'm looking for "Go There".

    Right click on for instance Sirius...you see "Go There" in the context menu.  That's what I speak of.

    "Go There" causes the app to zoom in on the star and produces a large image that is supposedly .019 AU from the 'surface'.

    I know the image is not a true image but it's a cool feature nevertheless.

  • 0
    Avatar
    Dlucas

    Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Visiting the surface. Got it. I haven't used that very often. But my hunch is - it's probably not calculated for all 27 million stars contained in SNP. That feature relies on some pretty cool math, as you can imagine. Surely it would explode the size of SNP if those calculations were available for all 27 million objects?

  • 0
    Avatar
    steve

    I think what SNP does in almost all of those cases is use a generic image scaled to the size and color of the star.

    So it might not be as much bloat to add those if it's the same few images with a scale calculation applied to each one as it's being pulled up.

    I guess whenever SNP adds new stars to use the Go There feature, one criteria it could use to help limit numbers getting out of hand is if there is something that makes the star 'notable'.  The stars most interesting to me are those where there is something very unusual known about them that can be simply defined.

    Steve

  • 0
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    Dlucas

    I can see why you're interested in these stars, Steve. You bring a fresh vibrancy to observing with SNP8. Glad you're engaged with it!

  • 0
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    steve

    Thank you Doug.

    I found a list of stars that should all be searchable in SN8:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_star_extremes

  • 0
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    Dlucas

    Great find, Steve!

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