The current version of the database is now hosted at Github as well as here.
The HYG database (v3.7) and Augmented Tycho-HYG (v2.4) catalogs are compilations of interesting (to me, anyway) stellar data from a variety of catalogs. They are useful for background information on all sorts of data: star names, positions, brightnesses, distances, and spectrum information. A version of the HYG catalog also powers the charts elsewhere on this site.
Choose the version of the database that best serves your needs:
This is the entire AT-HYG catalog. All Tycho-2 stars with a valid magnitude are included, along with data from Gaia DR3 for distances, proper motions, and radial velocities for most stars. Data from HYG is used when available and relevant (such as proper names, Bayer + Flamsteed IDs, and the catalog IDs for stars used to create the HYG catalog.)
The full catalog is quite large (2.5M stars). For smaller applications, several subsets of the full catalog are available. One of these, the HYGLike subset, has the same schema as the original HYG database, but updates many of the HYG stars with Gaia DR3 or DR2 data (whatever was found during the build of AT-HYG). It is intended to be a drop-in or near-drop-in replacement for HYG for many applications. The other two subsets are field-for-field identical with the full AT-HYG catalog; there are just fewer stars than in the full catalog.
The original HIPPARCOS, Yale BSC, and Gliese combination.
The HYG database is a subset of the data in three major catalogs:
Each of these catalogs contains information useful to amateur astronomers:
The name of the database comes from the three catalogs comprising its data: Hipparcos, Yale, and Gliese.
All told, v 2.x of this database contains ALL stars that are either brighter than a certain magnitude cutoff (magnitude +7.5 to +9.0) or within 50 parsecs (about 160 light years) from the Sun. The current version, v. 3.7, has no magnitude cutoff: any star in Hipparcos, Yale, or Gliese is represented.
The database is a comma separated values (CSV) file that can be imported into most database and spreadsheet programs. On this web site it is stored as a Zip file or a GZ file, which most popular unzippers can open.
The Augmented Tycho catalog is a project I've been working on for a few months. It's HYG, plus more ... a lot more.
The primary goal was to take advantage of the spectacular data sets from Gaia, especially the Data Releases 2 and 3 (DR2 + DR3), which contained over 1 billion exceptionally precise distance measurements to stars throughout our galaxy. I also wanted something larger than the older HYG catalog, since I first developed it over 15 years ago, when limits on computer storage and processing ability were more significant.
The Tycho-2 catalog was a suitable happy medium: at 2.5 million stars, it has more than enough for typical charting applications, and more than 20 times as many as HYG, but the data set is still manageable by fairly small applications in the 2020s. Combining the Tycho-2 catalog with distance and velocity information from Gaia DR3, along with suitable cross-reference IDs to other catalogs (principally HIPPARCOS and Henry Draper) gives the Augmented Tycho or AT catalog.
AT contains every Tycho-2 star with valid position and brightness data with whatever Gaia DR3 data could be found via cross-references to commonly existing data sets.
Combining AT with the HYG dataset gives all the additional data collected for HYG, such as Yale Bright Star Catalog and Gliese IDs, common names (such as "Rigel" or "Polaris"), and additional information especially useful to amateur astronomers. This combined dataset is the AT-HYG catalog.
Details of the construction of the catalog are on Github, both at a summary level and a more detailed level for version 1.x and version 2.x. The TL;DR version is:
"all of Tycho-2, which is essentially complete to V = 11.0 and has many fainter stars down to about V = 12.5, with Gaia DR3 distances for nearly all of them, and interesting historical and cultural information from HYG for the ones with a HIPPARCOS or a Henry Draper number."
AT-HYG has now been updated to Version 2.4. The 2.x versions add significant numbers of new fields. Version 2.0 is the biggest change from 1.x, with Gaia DR3 proper motions and radial velocities for approximately 75% of all stars plus Gaia DR3 proper motions only (no RVs) for most of the remaining 25%. Later versions add a few more fields of interest, listed below, and fix a few cases of missing or doubtful data in specific fields. For more details on updates to versions, see the version history.
Version 1.0 and up contains the following fields:
id: A numeric ID for each star, after sorting all entries by right ascension.tyc: The Tycho-2 ID, with leading zeros removed from the first and second portion (for consistency with Gaia linking tables)gaia: The Gaia Data Release 3 ID.hyg: The HYG main catalog ID from HYG v3.hip: The HIPPARCOS ID, from HYG if known, otherwise Tycho-2.hd: The Henry Draper (HD) catalog ID, from HYG if known, otherwise Tycho-2.hr: The Harvard / Yale Bright Star Catalog ID, from HYG.gl: The Gliese ID, from HYGbayer: The Bayer (Greek letter) designation, from HYGflam: The Flamsteed number, from HYGcon: The three-letter constellation abbreviation. This is available from HYG in v1.0 and for all stars in v1.1 and v2.x.proper: A proper name for the star, from HYGra: Right ascension (epoch + equinox 2000.0), in hours, from HYG or TYCdec: Declination (epoch + equinox 2000.0), in degrees, from HYG or TYCpos_src: Indicator of source for the position fields ra and dec (see below)dist: Distance from Sol in parsecs. From Gaia if known, otherwise HYG.x0y0z0: These three fields are Cartesian coordinates. The directions are such that x is towards RA 0, Dec 0, y towards RA 6 hr., Dec 0, and z towards Dec 90 degrees.dist_src: Indicator of source for the distance fields dist, x0, y0, z0 (see below). x0, y0, and z0 also depend on ra and dec,
so they will also be determined by the position source. An extremely common combination is raw distance from Gaia but the position from TYC.mag: V or VT magnitude for the starabsmag: Corresponding absolute magnitudemag_src: Indicator of source for the magnitude field mag (see below). absmag depends on both apparent magnitude and distance, so may be determined by values from two sources.Version 2.0 through 2.4 add the following fields:
pm_ra: (v2.0+) The proper motion in right ascension, in milliarcseconds per year. This figure has already been adjusted by cos(Dec) so it is actual milliseconds of arc.pm_dec: (v2.0+) The proper motion in declination, in milliarcseconds per year.pm_src: Indicator of source for the proper motion fields.rv: (v2.0+) The radial velocity, in km/sec.rv_src: Indicator of source for the radial velocity field.ci: (v2.1+) The color index, either B - V magnitude for the HYG sources (HIPPARCOS, Yale, Gliese) or BT - VT magnitude for Tycho-2. The Tycho-2 color index is essentially the same as B - V when it is close to zero, but tends to be slightly larger (up to about 0.25) for very red stars.spect: (v2.2+) The MK spectral type, when known.spect_src: Indicator of source for the spectral type field.vxvyvz: (v2.0+) These three fields are Cartesian velocities, all in km/sec. The directions are such that x is towards RA 0, Dec 0, y towards RA 6 hr., Dec 0, and z towards Dec 90 degrees.Fields from HYG are from HYG v3.7 in AT-HYG v2.2.
The HYGLike subset of AT-HYG is designed to behave like HYG. The field names are the ones from HYG rather than AT-HYG. The only new fields are the `*_src` fields from AT-HYG, which
are included in the HYGLike subset so that the sources of the various fields are clear. For example, in the original HYG, distances could safely be assumed to be from HIPPARCOS in
the vast majority of cases, but in AT-HYG they are mostly from Gaia DR3, with some from Gaia DR2 and a few from HIPPARCOS when Gaia data was not available.
There are a few differences in the contents of the fields in HYGLike vs. HYG, mostly having to do with some data that was present in HYG but not in AT-HYG. If your application doesn't use any of these fields, HYGLike is a drop-in replacement for HYG. Otherwise, you may need to make some small changes:
id: This is the serial ID number from AT-HYG, not from HYG. One exception: for backwards compatibility with HYG, the ID of the Sun (Sol) in
HYGLike is 0, rather than 1 the way it is in AT-HYG. comp, comp_id, base: AT-HYG does not track star multiplicity the way HYG does. These fields have placeholder values only (mimicking a data set
consisting entirely of single stars).lum: This is blank/empty in HYGLike. Compute it from the absolute magnitude of the star vs. the Sun (+4.85) if needed.var, var_min, var_max: Equivalents to these fields do not exist in AT-HYG. Later versions of AT-HYG may include variable star IDs as a historically significant ID, similar
to Bayer and Flamsteed designations, but there are no current plans to add variable star magnitude ranges to AT-HYG.This is outlined in very great detail for version 1 and version 2 in the official Github repo. A capsule summary is:
gaiadr3.gaia_source_lite to the table gaiaedr3.tycho2tdsc_merge_best_neighbour" to
associate Gaia DR3 with Tycho-2 source IDs.En route to version 3.7, there have been some significant changes, which are outlined in more detail on Github. The main ones are:
Currently, versions v3.1 through v3.6 are only available at the Github repo. I have retained version 3.0 on this site because it was the most current version for over 8 years, and it may make sense for some older applications, but new applications should use v3.7 (or later, if applicable).
id: The database primary key.hip: The star's ID in the Hipparcos catalog, if known.hd: The star's ID in the Henry Draper catalog, if known.hr: The star's ID in the Harvard Revised catalog, which is the same as its number in the Yale Bright Star Catalog.gl: The star's ID in the third edition of the Gliese Catalog of Nearby Stars.bf: The Bayer / Flamsteed designation, primarily from the Fifth Edition of the Yale Bright Star Catalog. This is a combination of the two designations. The Flamsteed number, if present, is given first; then a three-letter abbreviation for the Bayer Greek letter; the Bayer superscript number, if present; and finally, the three-letter constellation abbreviation. Thus Alpha Andromedae has the field value "21Alp And", and Kappa1 Sculptoris (no Flamsteed number) has "Kap1Scl".ra, dec: The star's right ascension and declination, for epoch and equinox 2000.0.proper: A common name for the star, such as "Barnard's Star" or "Sirius". These are taken from the International Astronomical Union (https://www.iau.org/public/themes/naming_stars/, specifically, I'm using a formatted version from https://github.com/mirandadam/iau-starnames)dist: The star's distance in parsecs, the most common unit in astrometry. To convert parsecs to light years, multiply by 3.262. A value >= 100000 indicates missing or dubious (e.g., negative) parallax data in Hipparcos.pmra, pmdec: The star's proper motion in right ascension and declination, in milliarcseconds per year. rv: The star's radial velocity in km/sec, where known.mag: The star's apparent visual magnitude.absmag: The star's absolute visual magnitude (its apparent magnitude from a distance of 10 parsecs).spect: The star's spectral type, if known.ci: The star's color index (blue magnitude - visual magnitude), where known.x,y,z: The Cartesian coordinates of the star, in a system based on the equatorial coordinates as seen from Earth. +X is in the direction of the vernal equinox (at epoch 2000), +Z towards the north celestial pole, and +Y in the direction of R.A. 6 hours, declination 0 degrees.vx,vy,vz: The Cartesian velocity components of the star, in the same coordinate system described immediately above. They are determined from the proper motion and the radial velocity (when known). The velocity unit is parsecs per year; these are small values (around 1 millionth of a parsec per year), but they enormously simplify calculations using parsecs as base units for celestial mapping.rarad, decrad, pmrarad, pmdecrad: The positions in radians, and proper motions in radians per year.bayer: The Bayer designation as a distinct valueflam: The Flamsteed number as a distinct valuecon: The standard constellation abbreviationcomp, comp_primary, base: Identifies a star in a multiple star system. comp = ID of companion star, comp\_primary = ID of primary star for this component, and base = catalog ID or name for this multi-star system. Currently only used for Gliese stars.lum: Star's luminosity as a multiple of Solar luminosity.var: Star's standard variable star designation, when known.var_min, var_max: Star's approximate magnitude range, for variables. This value is based on the Hp magnitudes for the range in the original Hipparcos catalog, adjusted to the V magnitude scale to match the "mag" field.I came up with this database while creating the 3D Universe web site. I needed a reference that would let me search for groups of stars by magnitude or distance, while giving me more information than was contained in any one catalog.
I started with the Hipparcos data. The Hipparcos data set represents by far the most comprehensive collection of stellar distance and brightness data in existence, except for very low-luminosity stars. Essentially all naked-eye stars (in fact, most stars down to about apparent magnitude +9 and many others down to about +11) are represented in the Hipparcos catalog.
In older versions of the dataset, I first prepared a subset of the Hipparcos data. I did this for boring technical reasons that no longer apply, so version 2.0 uses the entire Hipparcos catalog.
I next consulted the Gliese catalog to fill in gaps in the Hipparcos catalog, and to add various Gliese data to the catalog. In particular, the Gliese catalog ID is a common reference for nearby stars, and the Gliese catalog contains radial velocity data, which Hipparcos lacks. Additionally, though Hipparcos distances are generally superior to Gliese data, the Hipparcos catalog missed many nearby stars that were below its magnitude cutoff.
To cross-reference stars, I used the Henry Draper catalog number, whenever present, to add Gliese data to the Hipparcos catalog. Many of the faintest stars lacked this catalog number, so I compared the positions and brightnesses of Gliese stars to those in Hipparcos, and if they matched to within a certain tolerance, I assigned the appropriate Gliese data to the Hipparcos star. Stars that failed both references were then added to the end of the Hipparcos list.
I also converted Hipparcos apparent magnitudes to Gliese values for all components of known multiple stars in the latter catalog. Again, the Hipparcos magnitude measurements are often superior, but the Hipparcos catalog treats multiple stars inconsistently. In particular, it breaks some out as separate stars (e.g., Alpha Centauri) but merges others (such as Capella, 70 Ophiuchi, and many others). By contrast the Gliese catalog breaks all known multiple stars, excluding those too close to be separated optically, into their components, and gives each one a magnitude.
I then calculated absolute magnitudes for all stars, added those to the database, and added about 250 proper names. Then, again using Henry Draper as a cross reference, I added data from the Yale Bright Star Catalog: HR numbers, radial velocities (if not already added from Gliese), and the Bayer and Flamsteed designations. Finally, I added a number of radial velocities from the Wilson Evans Batten catalogue to stars that didn't already have that information.
These steps resulted in the full database. To make the various subsets, I took the resulting database and extracted subsets of the data.
With over 100,000 stars to worry about, I generally couldn't go in and edit suspect records by hand. Consequently, there are some issues that serious users may want to be aware of:
In short, though I have done what I can, I can't warrant the database to be error-proof. If you need to launch probes to all the stars in the database, you might want to give it a more thorough going-over before doing so :-)