Help - how do I convert star Hip numbers to SAO numbers?

[Martin-Devon]

I use Stellarium on my PC to orientate the night sky, and for star hopping - in this software package all the stars are given HIP numbers. However, my Celestron uses Nexstar which wants an SAO number entered to find a star. So at the moment, other than for the more common/brightest stars (which are listed under Nexstar), I cannot instruct guide my telescope to go to other stars that I find on Stellarium since I don't know how to convert a HIP star number to an SAO star number.

Does anybody know how do do this?

Thanks,

Martin

[GazOC]

I don't think there is any relationship between the 2 numbers Martin.

[BSIA Ralph]

I use Stellarium on my PC to orientate the night sky, and for star hopping - in this software package all the stars are given HIP numbers. However, my Celestron uses Nexstar which wants an SAO number entered to find a star. So at the moment, other than for the more common/brightest stars (which are listed under Nexstar), I cannot instruct guide my telescope to go to other stars that I find on Stellarium since I don't know how to convert a HIP star number to an SAO star number.

Does anybody know how do do this?

Thanks,

Martin

I know this reply is a bit late, but the SIMBAD resource is marvellous for this.

Go to http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/, scroll down to the basic search box, enter the HIP number and hit enter. The next page will list every catalogue designation for you.

Hope this helps.

[FraserClarke]

Hipparcos and SAO are different catalogs, so there isn't a direct relationship between them. A lot of stars will be common to both catalogs, but not all. SIMBAD above is good suggestion and will work, but you'll need to do it every time.

[Mr Spock]

Use Cartes du Ciel instead. If you use the Sky 2000 catalogue the id includes SAO numbers.

[AllanJ]

I downloaded Stellarium 0.11 yesterday. The search facility now links to SIMBAD automatically. If you enter an SAO and there is a corresponding HIP it will go to that, if no correspondence it will simply go to the location of your SAO object. Can't vouch for how good it is as I have only just tried it.

Allan

[nkvd3941]

I know this reply is a bit late, but the SIMBAD resource is marvellous for this.

Go to SIMBAD Astronomical Database, scroll down to the basic search box, enter the HIP number and hit enter. The next page will list every catalogue designation for you.

Hope this helps.

Many thanks - very useful