Astronomical object indexing on the Inspec database
by Ray Lewis, Online Marketing Officer (from Inspec Matters issue no.91 - September 1997) Updated by Mike Collins 2007
Over recent years, considerable moves have been made to standardise the nomenclature of astronomical objects. Up until the end of 1994, Inspec's subject specialists followed these standards as closely as possible and placed any such relevant objects in the uncontrolled (identifier) term field.
In January 1995 the Inspec Database merged with the PHYS Database (see Inspec Matters, No.78, June 1994) which already had in place, an indexing field specifically for astronomical objects. The Inspec name was maintained after this merger and a joint production arrangement began.
For some time now, an additional field for Astronomical Indexing has been included on the enlarged Inspec file. This field is a separately searchable field on the STN host system and the recent reload of the Inspec database on the Orbit system, and is searchable in the free or basic index on all other host systems.
The designations are of the following types:
Name-based acronyms. For example, LMC which is an acronym for Large Magellanic Cloud.
Constellation-based. For example, V1548 Aql which uses the IAU adopted three-letter code for the constellation name rather than, in this case, V1548 Aquilae.
Catalogue-based. A designation containing an acronym for the catalogue taken from catalogues used in the literature followed by a formatted sequence. This may be sequential, such as NGC 204, or it may represent an approximate location in the sky, usually in terms of right ascension and declination (such as PSR 1913+16) or Galactic coordinates (such as G 345.01+1.79).
Positional information only. For example, 013022+30233. The catalogue designations are described by one typical example, a short description of the catalogue content, a general format information entry, and, if available, the number of objects of the specific catalogue.
An example of a search on STN using this field is given below, wherein a search is conducted to find the galactic distance of an interacting galaxy pair called the Antennae. The initial search line limits the free text term of 'antennae' to the A9000 - Geophysics, Astronomy and Astrophysics subsection of the database. The second search line looks for the specific Numerical Index thesaurus term of 'galactic distance' within the PHP field so called because STN assign it as being the Physical Properties field.
=> FILE INSPEC=> S ANTENNAE AND A9/CC
999 ANTENNAE
498772 A9/CC
L1 193 ANTENNAE AND A9/CC
=> S GALACTIC DISTANCE/PHP
L2 4251 GALACTIC DISTANCE/PHP
=> S L1 AND L2
L3 2 L1 AND L2
=> D L3 1 AN,TI,AO,PHP
L3 ANSWER 1 OF 2
INSPEC COPYRIGHT 1997 IEE
AN 97:5566961 INSPEC
TI ROSAT HRI observations of NGC 4038/4039, "the ***Antennae*** " galaxies.
AO NGC 4038; NGC 4039; Arp 244
PHP ***galactic distance 2.9E+07 pc***
An extensive list of catalogue designations is also available.