Googling this subject pulls up a wealth of technical papers, but very few “astronomy for idiots” level resources. I’d just like to know what the closest legitimate equivalent to starregistry is, and by what methods do they taxonomize and store recognized identifications of stars – I’m assuming it’s by some kind of 3-axis position coordinate system. Thanks!
Simbad is one I’ve used. Under “Queries” pick “by identifier”. You can type in the name of the star you want to know about in the box, and then pick SUBMIT. As an example, let’s pick, oh, I don’t know, alpha Eridani. Under Basic data, you can see the properties of this star. It’s 2-D coordinates on the sky that we use to place it, not 3-D. However, the parallax is related to the distance, so that can be used as a third dimension.
Anyway, look at the next section, Identifiers. This is a very important star, so it has no fewer than 25 identifiers. The majority of them are just the name of some stellar catalogue, followed by a serial number. Really only the first three or so ever get used:
NAME ACHERNAR * alf Eri HD 10144
CPC 20 447 CPD-57 334 EM* CDS 176
FK5 54 GC 1979 GCRV 916
GEN# +1.00010144 HIC 7588 HIP 7588
HR 472 IRAS 01358-5729 JP11 517
N30 335 PLX 344 PPM 331199
ROT 233 SAO 232481 SKY# 2444
TD1 938 UBV 1700 UBV M 8330
uvby98 100010144
The Henry Draper (HD) catalogue is a fairly major one. I’ve alse seen SAO used every now and then. Minor stars won’t have names per se, and so they’ll be referred to by their identifier in some catalogue. Here are the 11 identifiers for HD 12345:
HD 12345 BD-13 364 G 272-138
GEN# +1.00012345 HIC 9404 HIP 9404
LTT 1067 PPM 210942 SAO 148151
UBV M 8606 YZC 11 455
Standard disclaimer. I am an astronomer, but I am not your astronomer. I’m not licensed to practice astronomy in your jurisdiction. Blah blah blah…