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MICA Version 2.0 External Catalogs

MICA has the ability to do Position and Rise/Set/Transit time calculations for stars or objects listed in external catalog files. The following external catalogs have been included with the MICA Version 2.0 CDROM:

MICA Astrometric Source Catalog (MASC)

The MASC catalog contains all stars recorded in the Hipparcos and/or the Tycho-2 catalogs with a Tycho magnitude (V_T) brighter than 9.5 mag. There are 232317 entries in this file. Most entries are listed in the Tycho-2 Catalog and approximately half are also listed in the Hipparcos Catalog. The Hipparcos catalog has a median astrometric precision of about 1 milliarcsec, while the Tycho catalog has a median astrometric precision of about 7 miliarcsec for objects with V < 9 mag. The positions and proper motions are given within the ICRS, for the mean equinox and equator of J2000. The MASC catalog was compiled from data contained in the USNO Washington Comprehensive Catalog Database. Additional information (especially alternate object name information) was also obtained from the SIMBAD object database and from the catalog archive at the Centre de Données astronomiques de Strasbourg France (see the CDS web site). The Hipparcos and Tycho-2 catalogs are products of the European Space Agency's Hipparcos mission, which operated from November 1989 to March 1993. A V magnitude flag, Spectral Type, Multiple flag, and Variable flag are also displayed in the MASC catalog output. For further information see the MASC catalog field description.

ICRF Radio Source Catalog

The MICA Version 2.0 ICRF Radio Source Catalog contains all the 608 extragalactic radio sources listed on the ICRF web site plus the additional 109 new radio sources listed in the ICRF-Ext.2 Fey (2004). The objects in the ICRF are classified in four categories: defining, candidate, "other", and new sources, all four of which are included in the MICA Version 2.0 catalog. The catalog data are derived from Ma (1997), and the candidate, "other", and new source positions have been updated to the ICRF-Ext.2. Positions are referred to the mean equator and equinox of J2000. Additional object name information, apparent visual magnitude (V), object category (C), object type (QSO, Galaxy, BL LAC, other), redshift (Z), and source flux density (Janskys at 5 GHz) were also obtained from the ICRF web site and are included in the MICA catalog. For further information see the MICA Radio Source catalog field description.

Navigational Star Catalog

The MICA Navigational Star catalog contains the 59 bright stars commonly used for Celestial Navigation. The stars are the same ones as listed in The Nautical Almanac with the addition of Polaris and Sigma Octantis. The MICA Version 2.0 catalog contains the object name and the object number as listed in The Nautical Almanac. The positions and proper motions are given within the ICRS, for the mean equinox and equator of J2000. For further information see the MICA Navigational Star catalog field description.

AsA Bright Star Catalog

This catalog contains 1467 stars which are the same as those listed in the Bright Stars catalog in Section H of The Astronomical Almanac. The mean positions for all stars in this catalog were obtained from the Hipparcos Catalogue and are referred to the equator, equinox, and epoch of J2000.0. The MICA 2.0 Bright Star catalog contains all the fields as are listed in the AsA Bright Star catalog. The common or historical object names have also been included in the MICA version of the Bright Star catalog and were obtained from the object database at the SIMBAD web site. For further information see the Bright Star Catalog field description and/or Section L of The Astronomical Almanac. Stars were included in the catalogue according to the following criteria:

1. all stars of visual magnitude 4.5 or brighter, as listed in the fifth revised edition of the Yale Bright Star Catalog (BSC);
2. all FK5 stars brighter than 5.5;
3. all Morgan-Keenan (MK) atlas standards in the BSC Morgan, et. al., (1978) and Keenan and McNeil (1976);
4. all stars matching criteria 1-3 and also listed in the Hipparcos Catalogue.

Messier Object Catalog

This catalog is unchanged from MICA 1.x. It lists 108 deep-sky objects by increasing Messier number, and the positions of all objects are referred to the equator, equinox, and epoch of J2000.0. For further information see the MICA Messier Object catalog field description.

MICA 1.x Catalog

This selection is available to support a previously imported MICA 1.x catalog, including a user-created catalog. For details on importing a MICA 1.x catalog see the File menu. For further information see the MICA 1.x catalog field description.