Identification of distant stars

[Marvin Jenkins]

Hi All. I would like to ask a question. Is there an open source on the web for identifying very distant stars?
I emailed a friend a recent DSO photo of M13 in Hercules and the question came back ‘what is the name of the small very red star almost obscured by the large yellow star in the top right corner‘?
 

All matter of fact I said I would look and try to identify it. In fact I didn’t even say try, now I am on the hook. I looked in the star charts and identified the large yellow star as TYC2588-780-1, distance to observer unknown.

Stellarium and SN7 was at the info limit with no further stars in the background field. Is there any way to access further information. Any help would be most appreciated.

Marvin

[vlaiv]

You need to plate solve your image and get coordinates of your star. After that you can search online catalogs like Simbad

http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/

Alternatively, if you can do a bit of coding, you can use these catalogs:

https://archive.stsci.edu/prepds/atlas-refcat2/

Quote

ATLAS-REFCAT2 is an all-sky reference catalog containing nearly one billion stars down to apparent magnitude m ~19. The catalog includes PanSTARRS DR1, ATLAS Pathfinder, ATLAS re-flattened APASS, SkyMapper DR1, APASS DR9, Tycho-2, and the Yale Bright Star Catalog.

 

[Martin Meredith]

As Vlaiv said, but an easier way in to simbad is via aladin: https://aladin.u-strasbg.fr/AladinLite/. Click on the Simbad checkbox once you have M13 in view and identify your star if it has a box around it. It might be in there GAIA database in which case click the GAIA DR2 checkbox.

Martin

[Marvin Jenkins]

Thank you Vladivostok and Martin, for the link and info. I will look into and if successful, reply to my friend in a way that suggests it was an easy thing to identify. Only joking. If I cannot find it then unofficially my friend can name it after himself.👍

[Marvin Jenkins]

Sorry Vlaiv, spellcheck did it to me again.

[SteveWolves]

carte du ciel gives it as

Star

UCAC4-629-051368