TD1 Catalog: 31,215 Stellar Ultraviolet Fluxes from a Full-Sky Satellite Survey

The Belgian/UK Ultraviolet Sky Survey Telescope (S2/68) on the ESRO TD1 satellite performed a controlled scan of the entire sky. It measured absolute ultraviolet flux distributions for 31,215 stars down to 10th visual magnitude across four specific passbands. The catalog results from this sky-scan experiment, with data originally provided by the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh and later recreated by NASA HEASARC.

Use Cases

• Modeling stellar spectral energy distributions based on the four ultraviolet passband fluxes.
• Analyzing ultraviolet flux characteristics of early B-type stars as mentioned in the description.
• Studying signal-to-noise and data completeness for statistical samples, given the handling of negative flux values.
• Cross-matching with other stellar catalogs using the provided Galactic coordinates.

Strengths

• Contains data for 31,215 stars, providing a substantial sample size.
• Offers absolute flux measurements in four defined ultraviolet passbands (centered at 274.0nm, 236.5nm, 196.5nm, 156.5nm).
• Features essentially complete sky coverage from the satellite survey.
• Includes Galactic coordinates added during the HEASARC recreation in 2005.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect the temporal and instrumental bias inherent to the 1970s TD1 satellite mission.

Provenance

Source

NASA HEASARC, based on data from the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh and CDS Catalog II/59B.

Collection Method

Controlled full-sky scan by the S2/68 telescope on the ESRO TD1 satellite.

Time Range

null

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 18:15:32.970310; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Entire sky.