Catalog v2.0 - Extended

AstroStack Catalog v2.0 - Extended

🌟 What's New

Massively Expanded Catalog:

• 500,000 stars from Hipparcos + Tycho-2 (was 50,000 - 10x increase!)
• Magnitude limit: 10.0 (was 7.5 - fainter stars for better matching)
• 1.4 million triangle patterns (was 171,000 - 8x increase!)

Complete Deep Sky Object Catalogs:

• 108 Messier objects (complete catalog)
• 7,840 NGC objects (complete New General Catalogue)
• 5,386 IC objects (complete Index Catalogue)
• 3,073 named stars (bright stars with proper names)

📊 Performance

• Solve time: 2-5 seconds (unchanged, optimized algorithms)
• Success rate: ~95% (was ~70% with v1.0)
• Full sky coverage: Northern + Southern hemisphere
• Field of view: 0.5° - 60° (phone cameras to telescopes)

💾 Download Size

• Required files: ~96 MB (star_catalog_v2.db.zip + messier_complete.json)
• Optional files: ~2 MB (NGC, IC, named stars)
• Total: ~99 MB (was 9 MB in v1.0)

✨ Benefits

• Offline plate solving - no internet required
• Fast identification - 2-5 seconds per image
• Accurate coordinates - RA/Dec with sub-arcminute precision
• Object recognition - automatically identifies 13,000+ celestial objects

🔄 How to Update

1. Open AstroStack app
2. Go to Settings → Offline Catalog
3. Tap Update Catalog
4. Wait for download (~99 MB)
5. Done! ✅

The app will automatically detect the new version and prompt you to update.

📦 Files Included

• star_catalog_v2.db.zip - 96 MB - Main star catalog with 500K stars and 1.4M triangles
• messier_complete.json - 16 KB - 108 Messier objects
• ngc_complete.json - 1 MB - 7,840 NGC objects
• ic_complete.json - 708 KB - 5,386 IC objects
• bright_stars_complete.json - 360 KB - 3,073 named stars
• version.txt - Version identifier

🔧 Technical Details

Data Sources:

• ESA Hipparcos Catalogue (118,000 stars)
• ESA Tycho-2 Main Catalogue (2.5M stars, filtered to 382K)
• NGC 2000.0 (NGC + IC combined catalog)
• Messier Catalogue (VizieR)
• Yale Bright Star Catalog

Algorithm:

• Triangle pattern matching with geometric hashing
• Indexed lookup for O(1) search performance
• Rotation, scale, and translation invariant

⚠️ Breaking Changes

None - fully backward compatible with v1.0. The app will seamlessly upgrade.

---

Catalog v2.0 brings desktop-level plate solving accuracy to your phone! 🚀