Magellanic Catalog of Stars: 244,000 Stars Around the Magellanic Clouds

The Magellanic Catalogue of Stars (MACS) contains about 244,000 stars covering large areas around the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. It is based on scans of ESO Schmidt plates, with positions referenced to the FK5 system via the PPM Catalog. This database table was created at the NASA HEASARC in June 1998 based on the ADC/CDS Catalog I/221.

Use Cases

• Astrometric calibration based on high-precision positional data.
• Studying stellar density and distribution in the Magellanic Clouds based on the catalog's spatial coverage.
• Assessing photometric completeness for stars up to a limiting blue magnitude of 16.5.
• Creating clean reference datasets for astrometry, based on the visual screening for undisturbed stars.

Strengths

• Contains about 244,000 stars, providing a substantial sample for analysis.
• Positional accuracy is estimated to be better than 0.5 arcseconds for 99% of the stars.
• Internal positional errors are at a level of 0.15 to 0.23 arcseconds, indicating high internal consistency.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• The catalog is not complete to its limiting blue magnitude of 16.5, as it includes only stars undisturbed by close neighbors.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

NASA HEASARC, based on the ADC/CDS Catalog I/221 derived from ESO Schmidt plate scans.

Collection Method

Created from scans of ESO Schmidt plates, with positions referenced to the FK5 system via the PPM Catalog.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 16:56:10.275691; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Large areas around the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC).