Catalog

Catalog

This page is used to find and select one of the approximately 4,000 objects of interest stored in the App database. The objects appear as a grid of icons along with their names. Objects will appear only if they meet a number of filtering criteria if one or more filters are enabled. Objects may also be sorted as desired.

Magnifying Glass

Tapping the Magnifying Glass icon in the upper left corner open the Search page. Tapping the word Search will allow text entry in the Search bar. The search is based on exactly the string of characters entered - there are no wildcards or control characters allowed. The object information that is searchable is the Object Names and the three-character Constellation Code. The entered string can appear anywhere in the name/code. If there are too many matches (e.g. after a single character is entered), the page will report "Search Empty" until more characters are entered. If an object with the entered string is found, it will be listed immediately. Tapping the found object open its Information popup, which must scrolled up to read fully. The (X) in the Search bar will clear entered characters, and the "<" in the upper left may be tapped to return to the Catalog page. Tapping the (X) also clears errors that may stop the search function from working.

Visible sky area

This button, when single tapped, toggles the application of the "Visible sky area" (VSA) settings when showing catalog objects. These VSA settings are applied when the button is filled, in which case only objects in your selected VSA will shown. Your VSA is determined by selections made in Settings/Visible sky area popup, the details of which described in the Settings section. Tap and hold the VSA button to open the VSA settings page directly.

Type

This button will open the Object Type page and allow the selection of one or more of eight object types. If no type is selected, the button will be unfilled, and no type filtering will occur. With exactly one type selected the button will fill and indicate the type, otherwise it will show the number of types selected. Selecting all object type is the same as deselecting all.

Sort (↑↓)

The Sort icon in the upper right of the Catalog page determines the order of objects on the page. The sequence reads from top to bottom and left to right in the rows.

• The "By recommended" sorting mechanism is not known. It may be a static priority using a value fixed to each object, or a dynamic selection algorithm based on visible or hidden variables associated with each object. Note that expected objects may not appear due to VSA or type filtering.
• "By order of appearance" sort uses the current position of objects in sky based on the time, location, VSA, and type criteria. Objects meeting the filter criteria furthest to the west of the eVscope will sort highest, with other visible objects sorted west-to-east.
• "By alphabetical order A > Z" is self-explanatory.
• "By proximity to the observed object" is only available when Orientation has been performed. The highest priority is given to object closest in angular separation to the sky location to which the eVscope is currently pointing. It does not require the eVscope to be currently tracking a specific object.