Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site mordor.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!bellcore!decvax!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!seismo!ut-sally!mordor!space@mit-mc From: space@mit-mc Newsgroups: net.space Subject: nearby stars Message-ID: <1004@mordor.UUCP> Date: Fri, 8-Mar-85 06:29:55 EST Article-I.D.: mordor.1004 Posted: Fri Mar 8 06:29:55 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 11-Mar-85 05:22:12 EST Sender: daemon@mordor.UUCP Lines: 76 From:I've been reading INFO-SPACE for several months now, and I'm not sure if you folks can help, but I'm getting desperate. Here's the story: I'm a contributing editor for BYTE Magazine. During the past few months, I've written a 3-D star map program for the Macintosh. It shows Sol and nearby stars as a cluster viewed from some imaginary point outside. You can reset the origin, view along different axes, scale the display, and filter out stars based on class, count (single/binary/trinary), and distance from the origin. I got my data base from an old SF role-playing game, UNIVERSE (from the now-defunct SPI), which has a nice map of all the star within ~30 ly. of Sol. All well and fine. BYTE wants me to write this program up as an article for the July ("Computers and Space") issue. That's fine, but it causes a few problems. Most users are going to want to have a star list that uses RA/DEC/PAR; the UNIVERSE map has everything converted to a Cartesian grid with 1 unit = 1 ly. No problem; the changes to the program take an hour or two. Now I just need to run to a local university library and get a list of nearby stars. Problem: most references only list the nearest 25 stars, and most of those are based on van de Kamp's 1953 list (stars w/in 5 parsecs). I *do* find Allen's "Astrophysical Quantities" (3rd ed., 1973), which does have the 100 nearest stars; however, the UNIVERSE map has nearly double that number, and the program doesn't look nearly as impressive with the smaller list. Visits to two universities (UCSD, SDSU), both to their libraries and their astronomy departments, yield nothing more except a few passing reference to the "Catalog of Nearby Stars". In the meantime, the first deadline for my article has come and gone, and the managing editor is wondering where my article is. Request: can any of you out there get me a list of the 200 or so (the more the better!) stars nearest Sol? For each system, I need the name, right ascension, declination, and parallax, and the class/subclass/size (all I really care about is dwarf/nodwarf) of the components. For example: ` NamRA: HH MM D MM PAR A B C Sirius 6 43 -16 39 377 A1 dA5 BD +50 10 8 49 42 219 K7 36 Ophiuchi 17 1-26 32 184 K1 K1 K5 and so on. The list does *not* have to be sorted by distance; my program handles that. The "cleaner" and more up-to-date your list, the better. I noticed discrepancies between the different lists I looked at; I would like (as much as possible) to avoid letters saying, "You fool! Don't you know that Sirius is closer than UV Ceti?" If the list has more data (i.e., if you're sending an existing file or even some xeroxed pages), no problem. The key word is SPEED; I needed this last week. Not only will the person or persons providing such a list earn my undying gratitude, but they will also be publicly thanked in the BYTE article and anywhere else I can fit it in. The absolute best way to send it would be to my node address: bang!crash!bwebster@nosc {ihnp4, sdcsvax!bang}!crash!bwebster Other addresses: CompuServe: 75166,1717 M: 138-5892 Fido: Node #87 (619-286-7838, 300/1200 baud) (my own node) USPS: 6215 Thorn St, San Diego, CA 92115 As mentioned above, I have my own bulletin board (Fido #87). If you want to call it directly and download, please do. If you want to save yourself phone charges, call me [voice] at (619) 286-7576, and give me instructiongs on how to call *you*. Many thanks to all; I know this is a large message and isn't adding much to the general discussion (though it perhaps beats out electric guitars in a vacuum and possibly even relativistic ashes). Hope to hear from some of you soon. ..bruce.. Bruce Webster/BYTE Magazine bang!crash!bwebster@nosc {ihnp4, sdcsvax!bang}!crash!bwebster