XML API’s

V 1.0

 

Users can use the XML API interface to determine the co-ordinates of stars from the Sky-map. These co-ordinates can then be used for various purposes (ex: Generation of ad-hoc Sky-Map images, redirection to the Sky-Map from a user website,etc)

 

1)    Co-ordinate Search Feature

 

This feature can be used to determine the various co-ordinates of stars in the Sky-Map.

 

The search feature can be used from one of the following servers

 

http://server1.sky-map.org/search

http://server2.sky-map.org/search

 

a)    Find co-ordinates of a star by the star name

 

In order to determine the co-ordinates of a star by the star name, pass the star name parameter, i.e., search?star=<starname>

 

Ex: http://server1.sky-map.org/search?star=polaris

 

The coordinates will be returned in the XML response as shown below

 

- <response>

  <request>StarName</request>

  <status>0</status>

  <verbiage>OK</verbiage>

- <star id="251">

  <catId>Catalogue ID</catId>

  <constellation id="NN">Constellation Name</constellation>

  <ra>Right ascension Value</ra>

  <de> Declination </de>

  <mag>magnitude</mag>

  </star>

  </response>

 

 

For our example of Polaris, the following co-ordinates will be returned

 

- <response>

  <request>polaris</request>

  <status>0</status>

  <verbiage>OK</verbiage>

- <star id="251">

  <catId>α UMi</catId>

  <constellation id="84">Ursa Minor</constellation>

  <ra>2.5301944444666664</ra>

  <de>89.264166667</de>

  <mag>2.0199999809265137</mag>

  </star>

  </response>

 

 

These co-ordinates can be integrated with the Image Generator to display the required images.

 

b)   Find co-ordinates of a star by the star name

 

This feature is similar to searching for star co-ordinates but the Catalogued id must be used instead of the star name ,i.e., star=<Catalogue ID>

 

Ex: http://server2.sky-map.org/search?star=HD23822

 

The Response received for this request is as shown below:

 

- <response>

  <request>HD23822</request>

  <status>0</status>

  <verbiage>OK</verbiage>

- <star id="413751">

  <catId>HD 23822</catId>

  <constellation id="78">Taurus</constellation>

  <ra>3.8158168399999997</ra>

  <de>23.857127369999997</de>

  <mag>6.4730000495910645</mag>

  </star>

  </response>

 

c)    Find co-ordinates of a group of stars

 

This feature can be used to find the co-ordinates of a group of stars within a required range. The search feature is located at one of the following servers

 

http://server1.sky-map.org/getstars.jsp

http://server2.sky-map.org/getstars.jsp

 

The following parameters can used to determine the search range

 

ra - Right Ascention

de – Declination

angle - angular size of celestial square

max_stars - maximum stars to return

max_vmag - maximal visual magninude of stars

 

A few examples are listed below

 

http://server2.sky-map.org/getstars.jsp?ra=12&de=45&angle=30&max_stars=3&max_vmag=8

 

This will return the co-ordniates of the three stars with a maximal visual magnitued