Tycho-2, star catalogs in Debian, and the stardata-common policy
Hi all,
I am currently creating index file packages for the upcoming
"astrometry.net" package from the Tycho-2 catalog [1][2]. The Tycho-2
catalog is now DFSG-free (under BSD-2-Clause).
The catalog is a comparably huge catalog: Containing 2.5 million stars,
its uncomressed size is ~500 MB, with xz compression it is still 120 MB.
I am now looking what is the most effective way to package this catalog.
The simplest (and currently implemented) way would be to just have the
catalog as source, and package the index files from there. If other
programs need the catalog as input, I could just add the procedures to
create them in debian/rules.
There is also the "stardata-common" package that defines some standard
way to handle the data. However, stardata-common seems to be quite old
and not be used very widely (only for the "gliese" and "yale" catalogs,
right?). There were some discussions about a Hipparcos catalog [3], but
it seemed not to have packaged.
Also, I have the feeling that stardata-common is not really applicable
for me, since it is a huge download, while some people need only smaller
index files (20 MB or so). Creating it on the fly also takes some time.
So, I am wondering, what the status of the stardata-common package (and
policy) is. Is is considered (almost) dead now (popconn=325, however)?
Is there an interest to keep an unchanged version of Tycho-2 in a binary
package? What about the Hipparcos catalog?
Best regards
Ole
P.S. Kevin, Francisco and Noel: I added you to the list since you were
involved in the stardata-common policy, or may have some interest in a
Tycho-2 package. You could also consider becoming a member of the
Debian-Astro team
[1] http://bugs.debian.org/795933
[2] http://anonscm.debian.org/cgit/debian-astro/packages/tycho2.git
[3] https://lists.debian.org/debian-science/2008/04/msg00010.html
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