COMRAD
COMRAD is a COMpendium of RADiosources prepared by Alan Wright & Heinz Andernach. It is based on the data tables supplied by Heinz Andernach and Carolyn Stern-Grant from the EINLINE database.The data can be obtained from the Australia Telescope National Facility's anonymous FTP server in the COMRAD All-Sky Compendium area
The main aim of COMRAD is not to reproduce all the same data contained in the EINLINE collection but, rather, to give the basic information about radiosources (position, fluxes etc.) in a single format and to reference where the more extensive data can be found. Perhaps most importantly of all, COMRAD is meant to be used on a stand-alone- machine, such as a PC. It therefore permits rapid searching and graphing without the speed limitations imposed by network access.
As a first step in this work, we have included 12 data files into COMRAD. These were chosen to include many of the larger and more important southern and northern finding surveys. However, many more remain to be included in later versions.
The basic form of COMRAD is as a large (~30Mb) dBase file (COMRAD.DBF). For copying via FTP, this file has been compressed to ~10Mb and has the name COMRAD.EXE. This is a self-extracting PKZIP file which should be "executed" on an IBM/PC-compatible machine (having at least 40 Mb of hard disk space free!) in order to decompress it.
Copy COMRAD.EXE to a suitably-named directory on your hard disk (for example, C:\COMRAD) and then type COMRAD. The self-extraction process should begin. When complete, the COMRAD.EXE file may be deleted.
To view and work with COMRAD, after decompression, a suitable PC program will be necessary. A copy of dBase itself (either version III+ or IV) will provide the most flexibility. However, almost all database programs can read and write dBase files and even some spreadsheet programs (e.g. Excel and Lotus) provide these functions.
Failing all of these, we have provided some utilities in the same area
from which you downloaded COMRAD.
In order of increasing "power" these are:
- DBVIEW!.EXE, a simple dBase file viewer
- QBASE!.EXE, a dBase "query" generator which can select COMRAD sources according to specified criteria
- WAMPUM!.EXE, a fully-fledged dBase "clone" which permits querying and editting of the COMRAD file.
All these programs are "Shareware" and may be freely used for an evaluation period of time (typically several weeks). If you find them useful after this, we urge you to obey the Shareware ethic and send the appropriate (and small!) registration fee to the original authors, as described in the accompanying documentation. To test these access programs on your machine, download them to the same directory as COMRAD is installed in, and type their names (e.g. WAMPUM!). The self-extraction process will begin and, when complete, you should read the relevant documentation for each program.
The fields presently contained in COMRAD are as follows:
- CAT code giving the reference from which the data was drawn (see below)
- NAMEJ name derived from the (J2000 equinox and equator) positions
- RAJ right ascension (J2000)
- ERA standard error in right ascension (seconds of time)
- DECJ declination (J2000)
- EDEC standard error in the declination (arcseconds)
- FLUX flux density in mJy
- EFLUX standard error in flux (mJy)
- FREQ frequency of the above flux measurement (MHz)
- RAB right ascension (B1950)
- DECB declination (B1950)
- ONAME original name as given in the source reference (except where that name is simply the "J-derived" name
The J2000 position is given to a standard precision of 0.1 secs of time and 1 arcsec for RA and Dec respectively even in the few cases where the original positions were of a higher accuracy. The B1950 positions (where available) are reproduced exactly as stated in the original references.
We have not provided data in some fields (such as EFLUX) where it was not obvious from the original reference what values to use. In a later version of COMRAD it may be possible to fill in this missing information by a more careful study of the original references.
REFERENCES to the data presently contained in COMRAD are as follows:
- 4C
The Fourth Cambridge Radio Survey (4C) Catalogue from the
papers of Pilkington et al 1965, MemRAS 69, 183. and Gower
et al 1967, MemRAS 71, 49. These data result from a survey
of radio sources between declinations -07 and +80 degrees
using the Cambridge interferometer at 178 MHz.
- 6C
The 6CI survey at 151 MHz: Declination range < +80 deg
Baldwin et al. 1985, MNRAS 217, 717 (courtesy S.E.G.Hales)
Comment: positions, peak & integrated fluxes for 1761
sources
- The 6CII Survey of Radio Sources, Zone 30<DEC<51;
08.5h<RA<17.5h; Hales et al. 1988, MNRAS 234, 919
(courtesy S.E.G.Hales) Comments: pos., peak + int.flux for
8278 sources at 151 MHz
- The 6CIII survey at 151 MHz: Zone 05h25m<RA<18h17m;
48<DEC<68 Hales et al. 1990, MNRAS 246, 256 (courtesy
S.E.G.Hales) Comment: positions, peak & integrated fluxes
for 8749 sources
- The 6C Survey of Radio Sources IV. Zone 67<DEC<82;
00h<RA<24h; Hales et al. 1991, MNRAS 251,46
(courtesy S.E.G.Hales) Comments: pos., peak + int.flux for
5421 sources at 151 MHz
- 87GB
The 87GB catalog of radio sources covering 0 < dec < 75 degs
at 4.85 GHz; Gregory & Condon 1991, ApJS 75,1011 (ctsy.
J.Condon)
Comments: positions, fluxes and notes for 54,579 discrete
sources
- B2
The B2 survey of radio sources at 408 MHz (includes B2.1 -
B2.4) Colla et al 1970/72/73, A&AS 1,281/7,1/11,291;Fanti
+74, A&AS 18,147 Comments: positions, fluxes, 3C/4C-ident.
of 9929 sources
- B3
The New Bologna (B3.1) Sky Survey at 408 MHz, Ficarra et
al. 1985, AASuppl 59, 255 (courtesy G.Grueff and L.Feretti)
Comments: 13354 radio sources, compressed version of Table
I; 4th last of the published sources was missing.
- MG1
The MIT-GB 5 GHz survey I (MGI), Bennett et al. 1986, ApJS
61, 1; Lawrence et al. 1986, ApJS 61,105 (court. G.Langston,
C.Lawrence) Comments: fluxes, spectr.ind. and opt.id. for
5974 sources; plus 3836 sources below the 5 sigma limit
- MG2
The second MIT - Green Bank 5 GHz survey (MGII survey)
(Langston et al. 1990, ApJSuppl 72, 621 (courtesy
G.Langston) Comments: pos., flux, sp.ind. for 6182 sources,
compressed version of Table 3; original version of the
authors, including search software available only on
diskette (requ. 360 kbyte)
- MG3
Third MIT-GB 5 GHz survey (MGIII); Griffiths et al 1990,
ApJS 74,129
Comments: pos., flux, sp.ind. for 3427 sources, compressed
version of Table 4; orig.version of the authors, including
PC search software
- MG4 Fourth MIT-GB 5 GHz survey (MG IV); Griffiths et al 1990, ApJS 75,801 Comments: pos., flux, sp.ind. for 4621 sources, compressed version of Table 4; orig.version of the authors, including PC search software
- MRC
The Molonglo Reference Catalogue of Radio Sources (MRC);
Large et al. 1981, MNRAS 194,693; The Observatory
111(1991)75 (ctsy. M.I.Large) Comments: new version with
J2000 coordinates of 12141 sources
- PKSCAT
PKSCAT90 database; Wright, A. E. & Otrupcek, R. E.,
eds.,1990, ATNF, "PKSCAT90 - the Southern Radio Database",
(Sydney: ATNF). (Available from R Otrupcek on request, in
either printed or machine-readable form.) Comments: J2000
positions, fluxes at various frequencies,
opt.identifications, redshifts for 8263 sources with DEC<+27
- PMN
The Parkes-MIT-NRAO survey. Data for the Southern
(-87.5<DEC<-37) and Tropical (29<DEC<-9) zones. Griffith &
Wright, AJ, 1993, Vol 105, p1666; Wright et al, ApJ Suppl,
1993, (in press); Griffith et al, ApJ Suppl, 1993, (in
press)
- TEXAS
The TEXAS 365 MHz survey covering -35<DEC<+71 dgs; Douglas
1987, BAAS 19,1048 & in prep; Ooty vers. (ctsy.
T.Velusamy,Gopal-Krishna,J.Webb) Comment: position, fluxes,
structure of ~68,000 radio sources
- RATAN
RATAN-600 deep survey of a declination strip at 4.9 degs;
modif.vers. of Pariiskii et al. 1991/2, A&AS 87,1; A&AS
96,583 (ctsy N.S.Soboleva) Comments: B1950,J2000-pos., 7.6cm
flux for 884 + 325 sources
- WB92
Catalog of 30,239 1.4 GHz sources; White & Becker 1992, ApJS
79, 331 Comments: positions, fluxes, cross-ids for 30,239
sources