Does anyone know what star catalogues were used for the game?

Anachronda

Anachronda
I am embarrassed to admit I am more ignorant of astronomy than I should be, but I do know there are star catalogues.

In any case, I was flying around earlier, testing my exploration vessel still in progress (5A FSD isn't cheap), when I happened upon a star with a familiar name. I looked at Wikipedia and found it in a constellation I had read about. Wikipedia isn't an authoritative source by any means, but I was able to find some of the stars listed there. Others I could not find. I realize there are different names for stars, which got me to thinking...

I was wondering if anyone knows what star catalogues were used for the game. I think the developers tried to put in as many real stars as they could. I do, however, think it possible if not likely they put in some stars which aren't listed in any catalogue, especially in the galactic core. But these stars are in a relatively observable area and are in regular star catalogues. So maybe they aren't being shown by the names I found. I can look further on that, but my question remains.
 
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Jackie Silver

Jackie Silver
They have used a variety of catalogues, but the overwhelming majority of stars in the game are procedurally generated.

The most commonly used catalogues are the HIP (Hipparcos), HR (Harvard Revised) and HD (Henry Draper) ones; close to Sol (within a couple of thousand light years) the brighter stars will usually be found prefixed with one of these designations - unless they also have a commonly used name, like Maia say, in which case they'll go by the common name.

Here's a link to wiki with some more that you will see. The LHS (etc.) tend to be found very close to Sol as they include stars with high proper motions ("close enough to see them moving")

It's worth pointing out that the information we have on the distance and characteristics of all stars usually includes significant margins of error - beware of anything which tells you that a real star is "500 light years from Earth" or "5 solar masses" or whatever, it's difficult to be so precise unless the star is nearby in galactic terms - and even then there are some surprising bones of contention like the exact distance to the Pleiades or Orion.
 

aRottenKomquat

A
Anything WISE is real, too, I forget if WISE is a satellite or a survey. I used to get ticked at all the WISE 0383+1983 names thinking "Who the heck would name a star that?" Then found they were actually named that.
 
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