About
Credits
The observatory's photographs are the project's own. The data and reference images below come from public projects, and each one is credited here.
Reference images: Digitized Sky Survey (DSS2)
For objects the observatory has not yet captured or processed, the site shows a reference image from the Digitized Sky Survey 2. They are always labeled with a "DSS2" badge and a notice, and are replaced by the observatory's own photograph as soon as it is published.
The Digitized Sky Survey was produced at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI). The images come from photographic plates of the Oschin Schmidt Telescope on Mount Palomar (Palomar Observatory Sky Survey II, Caltech) and the UK Schmidt Telescope. Credits: STScI/NASA, Caltech/Palomar Observatory, UK Schmidt Telescope (UK SERC/PPARC) and Anglo-Australian Observatory/Royal Observatory Edinburgh, AURA.
The Digitized Sky Surveys were produced at the Space Telescope Science Institute under U.S. Government grant NAG W-2166. The images of these surveys are based on photographic data obtained using the Oschin Schmidt Telescope on Palomar Mountain and the UK Schmidt Telescope.
STScI terms and acknowledgments
Catalog data: OpenNGC
Positions, magnitudes, sizes and classifications of NGC, IC and Messier objects come from OpenNGC, by Mattia Verga and contributors, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA 4.0). The data were selected and adapted for this site; the Caldwell cross-reference list and the Portuguese names are our own curation.
Designations and distances: SIMBAD; map: Aladin Lite
The designations in other catalogs (NGC, IC, Sharpless, RCW, Gum, LBN/LDN, PGC/UGC, Collinder, Melotte) and the distances published in the guides come from the SIMBAD database, operated by CDS in Strasbourg, France. The interactive map in the guides uses Aladin Lite, also from CDS, and is loaded from their server only when you click "Open interactive map".
SIMBAD · Aladin Lite · CDS
Finder charts: Carina and the HYG catalog
The star-hopping charts in the guides are generated by Carina, the observatory's own planetarium (Python, PySide6), from the HYG star catalog (CC BY-SA 4.0 license) and the d3-celestial constellation figures.
Software and typography
This site uses WordPress, Polylang (multilingual) and the Inter and JetBrains Mono fonts, distributed under the SIL Open Font License.