PiFinder™ Catalogs =================== The PiFinder comes with a number of astronomical catalogs which can be searched and filtered. Each has a short catalog code displayed on the PiFinder UI. You can select which catalogs are active via the :ref:`Filters` menu. A few of these catalogs — the Washington Double Star catalog especially — hold far too many entries to scroll through. For those, use **Name Search** to jump straight to an object by its designation, or sort a list by **Nearest** to surface the objects closest to where your scope is currently pointed. Abl ---- The Abell Catalog of Planetary Nebulae (1966 by George O. Abell) contains 79 entries confirmed to be planetary nebulae. Arp ---- Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies (Arp 1966) Select galaxies with interest morphology. See `Wikipedia - Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies `_ B ---- Barnard's Catalogue of 349 Dark Objects C ---------- Caldwell catalog Col ---------- The Collinder catalogue has 471 open clusters compiled by Swedish astronomer Per Collinder. EGC ---- Catalog of Extra-Galactic Globular Clusters. This catalog features globulars associated with nearby galaxies and are visible through modest amateur telescopes, mostly in Andromeda. H ---------- The Herschel 400 catalogue is a subset of William Herschel's original Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars, selected in response to a letter in Sky and Telescope. Harris ------- Globular Clusters in the Milky Way (Harris, 1997) This catalog compiled was by William E. Harris and used by permisson. IC ---------- IC catalog Lyn ---- Open Cluster Data, 5th Edition (Lyngå 1987) — 1,151 open clusters. M ---------- Messier catalog NGC ---------- NGC 2000.0, The Complete New General Catalogue and Index Catalogue of Nebulae and Star Clusters by J.L.E. Dreyer Sinnott, R.W. (edited by) RDS ---- the RASC Double Stars Observing Program. The 110 double star targets are visible from the northern hemisphere in many constellations. SaA ---------- Saguaro Astronomy Club Asterisms Database Version 3.2 SaM ---- Saguaro Astronomy Club Double Star Database Version 4.0 2162 double stars. SaR ---- SAC Red Stars Database Version 2.0 Sh2 ---- The Sharpless catalog is a list of 313 H II regions (emission nebulae) intended to be comprehensive north of declination −27°. Str ---- A catalog of named bright stars. Especially useful for aligning GoTo scopes. Ta2 ---------- The TAAS 200 deep sky astronomical observing list designed for the intermediate observer, and includes the best 200 non Messier objects easily visible from central New Mexico, (objects north of declination -48). TLK ---- TLK's hand-picked list of interesting variable stars visible from the northern hemisphere. WDS ---- The Washington Double Star Catalog — the PiFinder includes over 130,000 double and multiple star pairs from it. Because the full list is far too long to scroll, find a pair with **Name Search** (type its WDS designation) or sort the list by **Nearest** to bring up the doubles closest to where your scope is pointing. For more information on WDS, please see: `https://www.astro.gsu.edu/wds/ `_