Kepler Search Page (screencap)
A lot of people have asked how to identify a star that they see on the Planethunters website. Apparently the programming team will be adding something soon that says what the Kepler ID (KID) of the star is, but in the meantime I’ll show you how to track it down yourself!
The good news is that it is possible to go to the Kepler Data Search page at http://archive.stsci.edu/kepler/data_search/search.php (shown in the screencap on the left) and find all the stars listed on the PH site, but it’s not quite as straightforward as typing the ID of the star into the search forms there – the stars on the PH site have their own ID numbers with APH or SPH in front of them, and these are not the same as the official Kepler IDs used in the Kepler catalogues. However, all the information you need to find a star is on the PH site.
If you look at the source page for a star (e.g. http://www.planethunters.org/sources/SPH10052245 ) you’ll see on the right-hand side four “stats” for the star – “Type of star”, “Apparent visual magnitude”, “Teff“, and “Radius”. You don’t need the Type, but you’ll need the other three, so make a note of those numbers (or remember them).
If you look at the Kepler Data Search Page, you’ll see a lot of places where you can enter numbers to search for things! It might seem a little intimidating at first, but don’t panic! Here’s what you need to do:
Continue reading ‘Planethunters: How to ID a star on the Kepler Data Search site (updated to Q2)’
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