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ASTR 130: Origins and the Search for Life in the Universe: Star Maps and Data

A guide to resources, tools, and tips for completing your final project for Origins and the Search for Life in the Universe.

Books

Data

SIMBAD is an excellent resource to use for learning more about your star. First, stars often have many names — there's the constellation-based name that many receive based on where they are located in the sky, an ancient culturally significant name, and the names/identifiers that are given when a star is observed as part of an observing program. (Read more about this at the IAU's guide to the history of star catalogues.)

To search in SIMBAD, you can use the basic search. I did a search for iota Horologii. You will see a page that looks like the one below.

The results page on SIMBAD.

When you scroll down, you will see other information that you can use when doing your report. There is a section called References that will show you bibliographic records for things that discuss this object. When you click Display, you will see many papers about your star.

References in SIMBAD.

Of course, there are other tools you can use that are not SIMBAD — and very good ones! See below for some of them.