Star Database Search

You can identify and insert specific stars into the current scenario. Form the Insert menu, select Star from Database and the Insert Star from Database dialog box will appear. Depending on the catalog you choose, you can select from thousands to millions of stars based on visual magnitude, star catalog ID, common name, etc. Inserting stars into STK this way is useful for cases where you are interested in a relatively small number of stars (< 1000). For cases where large numbers of stars are of interest, it may be better to create a star collection, which you can use in 3D graphical displays and deck access operations.

If you insert a star using this dialog box, information for that star appears on the Description page of its Basic properties.

View stars that meet your criteria

To display stars from a certain catalog that meet specific criteria, use the following steps:

  1. Go to the Select a catalog field and select one of the star catalogs from the pull-down list. The selected catalog determines the number of stars available for display. For a more detailed description of the catalogs available to you in STK, refer to Construction of the STK Star Catalogs.
  2. In the Initialize from field, select (None) or one of the star collections created from the selected star catalog.
  3. You can use the following constraints to further define the number of stars displayed:
    4. Constraint Description
    Visual Magnitude Min/Max Specify minimum and maximum search limits for visual magnitude.
    Right Ascension Min/Max Specify minimum and maximum search limits for right ascension.
    Declination Min/Max Specify minimum and maximum search limits for declination.
    Common Name Enter the common name of the star.
    Catalog Specific Identifier Each star catalog uses a unique primary identifier to identify stars. The Bright Star Catalogue (BSC) uses the Harvard Revised (HR) number (e.g., 2491). The Hipparcos catalogs use the Hipparcos identifier, which like the HR number is simply an integer (e.g., 32349). The Tycho catalogs use the Tycho identifier, which has three parts: the Guide Star Catalog region number, the count within the region, and component of the star system. An example is 5949-2777-1.
    Constellation Specify the name of the constellation in which the star is located, such as Andromeda.
  4. Click Search to display all the stars from the selected catalog that meet the specified criteria.

Search Results

All stars that meet the search criteria appear in the Search Results list, which STK by default sorts by the catalog specific identifier. To sort the results by a different column, double-click the column header. You can modify the content of the results grid, including displaying additional columns, by right-clicking the column header of the grid.

If there are one or more stars in the list resulting from the search, you can select which ones to insert into your scenario. Use the Shift or Ctrl key to select more than one item. Use Ctrl+A or click the Select All Results check box to select all items. Then click Insert Selected Stars to create star objects for each in your scenario.

Creating a star constellation object

You can group stars from the search result into a single unit called a constellation object. To create a constellation of stars:

  1. Select one or more stars or click the Select All Results check box to identify stars to be added to the constellation.
  2. Select the Create a constellation from selected stars check box and enter a name for the constellation.
  3. Click Insert Selected Stars to create the constellation. STK will add this constellation object to the Object Browser.