From the menu: Setup → Catalog → VO Catalog → Add
This screen let you select and download data from more than 9000 catalogs available from the Vizier Virtual Observatory interface.
The first time you open this window you need to select a Vizier mirror near your location.
There is two way to get a list of catalog:
Scroll the list to select the line with the data you want and press Select catalog to go to the next screen.
For an example here we select the Cepheids in M101 galaxy.
Be careful and take your time to examine this screen. There is a some option that greatly affect the final result and despite the program try to determine the best settings from the data it get you probably want to alter a few ones.
The next step is to click on the top tabs to select the data table you want from the catalog. Only the tables that contain the objects coordinates are include because this is require to plot the objects on the map.
For example here the table 2 list the reference stars and table 3 the M101 Cepheids, so we select table 3.
The list contain all the fields of the table. With a “x” in the first column the field is selected to be include in our download.
The program use the UCD field description and the units to recognize the data.
Review the list carefully to be sure the required data to plot the object are selected:
If the table contain many data of the same type, for example B V R I magnitude, you can select only the one you want to use on the map.
The Units are also important, don't expect the program to plot the object at it's correct size if it is given in millimeter on the photographic plate!
At this stage it may help to take a look at the actual data, click the Data preview button to load a sample in the screen describe below.
Bellow the list are the table name, the total number of records, the table description and a check box to select if you want to download the full catalog or just the data at the current map position.
On the left you can select:
To override the default color for the type of object: Check “Force color” and click on the color square.
Then check the kind of drawing “as Star” or “as Deep sky object” in the middle box.
Sometime the program make the wrong choice. For example he want to plot a star catalog as DSO because it include some angular measurement wrongly taken as the object size.
Or as with the Cepheids in our example we prefer to draw the star position with a symbol, so we select DSO.
When all is ready press the Download catalog button.
When it complete press the Close button to return to the catalog settings, or the Back button to return to the Catalog selection.
This is just a preview of a few rows of the data you select in the previous screen.
Press the Back button to return.