Right now this is just odd notes. The program is under construction. The code started from a template generated by a program that I am working on which given a database and credentials reads a table and writes CGI code to send an HTML form, recieve the form, process it and write another HTML result/form for submission. Some thing I do over and over when I make a web based site using an RDBM. Then I made a table with text fields for all the columns in the hyg data (below) I opened the csv in Libe Office calc, sorted on the 'proper' field and saved it as csv. I never opened the original hyg csv so I assume there was a lot of comments. My sorted file was was smaller. My only mistake was not making floating point type for the appropriate columns! (quite a few, i think maybe 8 or 9.) This means only the proper name and BF searches totally work. You CAN search an RA or Dec but dont try both. I already wrote some math based code that fails because I used text fields this first shot. I will have to drop the table, create it using math fields for RA, decl, etc. and load the sorted csv back in. If it breaks the C++ its trivial to fix. UPDATE: Fixing this was syimple. I edited the mysqldump to create double instead of varchar, Nothing needed changing in the C++, It all just worked. Meanwhile, I have been typing part of a star name in proper, then take the three letter con code and going back to the form and paste it into the 'bf' field. WARNING! If you get over 500 hits in your search this under construction version reports that number of hits and quits. Refine your search. The latest change I made is making the ID field in the multiple star display a form to query that one star. I also added the remaining table fields to the right side of the single star display. UPDATE: alot has changed also i found this: http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/starmaps/software.php#bradjones The rest of this is my notes and some links to the hyg and other websites. NOTES and links from David and google: RA/dec to x,y,z http://www.stargazing.net/kepler/rectang.html http://tdc-www.harvard.edu/wcstools/wcstools.progs.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Astronomical_catalogues My data comes from V3.0 at this site: http://www.astronexus.com/hyg File sizes of the gz downloaded the uncompressed csv file and the csv file after openong in Libra Office Calc, sorting on the 'proper' name and saving as csv. Notice the smaller size. total 75344 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 33449663 May 12 17:22 hygdata_v3.csv -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 13898960 May 12 17:22 hygdata_v3.csv.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 29704049 May 12 17:22 hygdata_v3_sorted.csv Fields: id hip hd hr gl bf proper ra dec dist pmra pmdec rv mag absmag spect ci x y z vx vy vz rarad decrad pmrarad pmdecrad bayer flam con comp comp_primary base lum var var_min var_max From Arnie: 12 degree field of view deneb in the center trying to get whole area of cygnus all stars 6 magnitude of greater (lower number) change view according to what instrument using refracter with diagonal schmitt cass dob be able to adjust field of view scale dot size / magnitude as it would change with field of view be able to adjust the orientation be able to adjust magnitude limit