The GSC II Catalog over the World Wide Web

All WCSTools programs which access the GSC II Catalog acess it over the web. Code to assemble and send http queries to the STScI GSC II server is built into the GSC II access subroutine. Since tab-separated Starbase tables, a native WCSTools catalog format, are an output option from the catalog server, they are parsed and sorted just like local Starbase files.

The following example searches a 3 arcminute radius circle around 10:00 30:00 J2000 and returns all of the stars found there, sorted by their distance from the search center. The verbose mode (-v) echoes the http query sent. 


$ sgsc2 -s p -vhr 180 10:00 30:00 J2000

sgsc2 3.0.5, 21 September 2001, Doug Mink SAO
Center:  10:00:00.000   +30:00:00.00 J2000
Area:    00:00:27.71 x +00:06:00.00
     gsc2  10:00:00.000 +30:00:00.00 J2000 r= 180.00 at epoch 2000.00

http://www-gsss.stsci.edu/cgi-bin/gsc22query.exe?ra=10:00:00.000&
dec=+30:00:00.00&r1=0&r2=3.000&m1=0.00&m2=99.9&n=100000&submit2=Submit+Request

SearchLim: RA: 09:59:46.144 - 10:00:13.856  Dec: +29:57:00.00 - +30:03:00.00
TABREAD: Catalog http://www-gsss.stsci.edu/cgi-bin/gsc22query.exe : 9 / 10 / 9 found
9 GSC 2.2
GSC II number  RA2000       Dec2000      MagF  MagJ  MagV  MagN  Arcsec
N23300138138  09:59:57.812 +29:59:41.61 99.90 19.02 99.90 99.90   33.86
N23300138176  09:59:57.363 +29:59:59.00 18.20 99.90 99.90 99.90   34.28
N23300138024  10:00:04.044 +29:58:52.62 18.22 99.90 99.90 99.90   85.44
N23300137981  10:00:00.825 +29:58:29.54 16.30 17.77 99.90 99.90   91.10
N23300138201  09:59:52.870 +30:00:11.59 18.09 19.22 99.90 99.90   93.34
N2330013430   10:00:07.759 +30:00:05.08 12.24 13.66 99.90 99.90  100.91
N23300137937  10:00:00.781 +29:58:11.02 17.41 18.69 99.90 99.90  109.45
N23300137866  10:00:07.818 +29:57:42.80 18.20 99.90 99.90 99.90  170.71
N23300137785  10:00:03.922 +29:57:11.59 17.77 19.30 99.90 99.90  175.95
Running the same search with a vvv flag prints the actual returned information, (the returned lines are split here to fit on the page): 
$ sgsc2 -vvvhr 180 10:00 30:00 J2000

sgsc2 3.0.5, 21 September 2001, Doug Mink SAO
     gsc2  10:00:00.000 +30:00:00.00 J2000 r= 180.00 at epoch 2000.00
GSC2ID          Ra              Dec             RaErr           DecErr         Epoch            RaPM            DecPM           RaPMErr         RaPMErr   
--------------  ----------      ----------      ----------      ----------     ----------       ----------      ----------      ----------      ----------
N23300138201    149.97029271    30.00321937     0.253854        0.252980       1989.927246      0.00000000      0.00000000      0.00000000      0.00000000
N23300137937    150.00325622    29.96972872     0.253854        0.252980       1989.927246      0.00000000      0.00000000      0.00000000      0.00000000
N23300138024    150.01684990    29.98128360     0.253854        0.252980       1989.927246      0.00000000      0.00000000      0.00000000      0.00000000
N123300138138    149.99088204    29.99489136     0.337576        0.302556       1993.195190      0.00000000      0.00000000      0.00000000      0.00000000
N23300137981    150.00343836    29.97487112     0.253854        0.252980       1989.927246      0.00000000      0.00000000      0.00000000      0.00000000
N23300138176    149.98901042    29.99972114     0.253854        0.252980       1989.927246      0.00000000      0.00000000      0.00000000      0.00000000
N2330013430     150.03232758    30.00141232     0.253854        0.252980       1989.927246      0.00000000      0.00000000      0.00000000      0.00000000
N23300137866    150.03257446    29.96188828     0.253854        0.252980       1989.927246      0.00000000      0.00000000      0.00000000      0.00000000
N23300137785    150.01634188    29.95321941     0.253854        0.252980       1989.927246      0.00000000      0.00000000      0.00000000      0.00000000

     Fmag     FmagErr Jmag    JmagErr Vmag    VmagErr Nmag    NmagErr a       e      PA       c       Status
     -----    -----   -----   -----   -----   -----   -----   -----   -----   ------ ------   ---     ------
     18.09    0.42    19.22   0.43    99.90   99.90   99.90   99.00   2.24    0.04   45.00    0       1022202
     17.41    0.42    18.69   0.42    99.90   99.90   99.90   99.00   3.37    0.28   154.37   0       1022202
     18.22    0.43    99.90   99.90   99.90   99.90   99.90   99.00   3.37    0.36   124.14   3       20202
     99.90    99.90   19.02   0.42    99.90   99.90   99.90   99.00   3.21    0.17   85.81    0       1002202
     16.30    0.41    17.77   0.42    99.90   99.90   99.90   99.00   3.15    0.04   82.67    0       1011202
     18.20    0.42    99.90   99.90   99.90   99.90   99.90   99.00   2.88    0.23   84.43    3       20202
     12.24    0.41    13.66   0.42    99.90   99.90   99.90   99.00   6.15    0.02   15.59    0       1011202
     18.20    0.42    99.90   99.90   99.90   99.90   99.90   99.00   2.86    0.23   125.38   0       1020202
     17.77    0.42    19.30   0.43    99.90   99.90   99.90   99.00   2.65    0.12   145.95   0       1022202
[EOD]

ADASS 2001 WCSTools 3.0 paper