Starfinder queries the TESS Input Catalog (TIC) on MAST to retrieve objects in the vicinity of given coordinates. If proper motions for these objects are known, they are propagated to the given epoch. Objects are rendered into a retangular RA-Dec-plot using circles as markers. Circles for brighter stars are bigger than circles for fainter stars. Magnitudes are given in the TESS band (600 to 1000 nm). Details on the TIC can be found here: TIC II paper.
Your queries are stored in a local database. A query remains valid for 1 hour, unless you change and re-submit or upload again. We can not exclude that your query can be seen by others. At the moment - while we still develop this tool - we do not regard this as a concern, because nothing but the query parameters are stored (without any IP or other identifyable information). If you have security concerns, please use the "Clean up" button on the result page. This will immediately delete your query from the database. Please feel free to contact us here.
Once you filled in the form, please press the Submit button to generate a finder-plot. Please note that the plot-span in Dec is reduced to Dec_center +- search_radius * cos(Dec_center) and thus RA and Dec axis have different spans for higher declinations. You can adjust input fields and re-submit at any time. I you are happy with the plot, use the Download button to get a gzipped tarfile. On a Unix-like system this file can be unpacked with the command
tar -xvzt starfinder.tgzIt unpacks into a numbered directory with the png of your figure.
Using the Browse button you can search for a comma separated file (csv format) with inputs for StarFinder. The columns are the same and in the same order as for a single plot. We highly encourage to set an ID or title. If not given or not existent at all epoch, search radius and faint limit will be set to the default values given above. The plots will automatically be generated, any errors found will be reported on the top of the page. Empty lines or lines starting with a hash-mark (#) will be ignored. Sample file:
# this is a comment and will be ignored # title, ra, dec, epoch, search radius, maglimit, grid TIC 352239069, 292.196, 58.6148, J2022.05, 2.0, 25, 1 Binostar, 82.3308, 84.8971, J2022.75, 5.0, 25, 0 Barnard's star, 269.445833, 4.739167,, 5.0,, true Southern sky, 101.475593, -19.659563,,,, false GalCenter, 266.417, -29.0078
Inspect the plots and if you are happy with them use the Download button to retrieve an archive containing all figures. You unpack it the same way as for single objects. If you have to correct errors or want to adjust parameters, please upload the modified file again.