Astronomical catalogs such as those for asteroids may be compiled from multiple sources, but most modern catalogs are the result of a particular astronomical survey of some kind. Since the late 20th century catalogs are increasingly often compiled by computers from an automated survey, and published as computer files rather than on paper.
Catalogs of historical importance
Ptolemy'sAlmagest was published in 1st century AD. It remained the most authoritative text on astronomy for over 1500 years.[2] It details over 1022 stars, constellations, galaxies and nebulae along with their positions, ecliptic coordinates and magnitudes. It also describes in detail the construction of instruments to aid in Astronomical investigations.[3]
Tycho Brahe completed his catalogue with the positions and magnitudes of 1004 fixed stars in 1598. It was the major achievement in astronomy since the days of Ptolemy. The astrometry observations of Tycho Brahe greatly improved the positional accuracy achieved by his predecessors.[6][7]
MessierCatalog – The Messier objects are a set of astronomical objects first listed by French astronomer Charles Messier in 1771. Nebulae and Star Clusters was published in 1781, with objects M1 – M110.
New General Catalogue compiled in the 1880s by J. L. E. Dreyer, lists objects NGC 0001 – NGC 7840. The NGC is one of the largest historical comprehensive catalogs, as it includes all types of non-stellar deep space objects.
Henry Draper's Henry Draper Catalogue, published between 1918 and 1924, lists more than 225,000 of the brightest stars, named using HD followed by a 6-digit number.
Sir Patrick Moore compiled the Caldwell catalogue in 1995 to complement the Messier catalog, listing 109 bright star clusters, nebulae, and galaxies named C1 to C109. This is a list of deep-sky objects of interest to amateur astronomy and not a catalog in the professional science sense. Other deep-sky observing lists for amateur astronomers predated it.
^"Release of the ESO Archive Science Portal". www.eso.org. Retrieved 13 August 2018.
^ a bKepple, George Robert; Glen W. Sanner (1998). The Night Sky Observer's Guide, Volume 1. Willmann-Bell, Inc. p. 18. ISBN 0-943396-58-1.
^"Mathematical Treasure: Ptolemy's Almagest | Mathematical Association of America". www.maa.org. Retrieved 2022-11-02.
^"Observatoire de Paris (Abd-al-Rahman Al Sufi)". Archived from the original on 16 April 2007. Retrieved 2007-04-19.
^"Observatoire de Paris (LMC)". Archived from the original on 17 April 2007. Retrieved 2007-04-19.
^Truffa, Giancarlo (2002-01-01). "The First Printed Edition of Tycho's 1004 Star Catalogue". Tycho Brahe and Prague: Crossroads of European ... 16: 310. Bibcode:2002AcHA...16..310T.
^Verbunt, F.; van Gent, R. H. (2010-06-01). "Three editions of the star catalogue of Tycho Brahe. Machine-readable versions and comparison with the modern Hipparcos Catalogue". Astronomy and Astrophysics. 516: A28. arXiv:1003.3836. Bibcode:2010A&A...516A..28V. doi:10.1051/0004-6361/201014002. ISSN 0004-6361.