Pulsars plugin

Description

This plugin plots the position of various pulsars, with object information about each one. Pulsar data is derived from Catalog of Pulsars (Taylor+ 1995) for 0.1.x series and derived from The ATNF Pulsar Catalogue (Manchester, R. N., Hobbs, G. B., Teoh, A. & Hobbs, M., Astron. J., 129, 1993-2006 (2005) (astro-ph/0412641)) for series 0.2.x.

Example (PSR J0332+5434):

Using the Pulsars plugin

1. Enable the tool by clicking the tool-bar button "Load at startup"
2. Find the pulsar by their designation (PSR J0437-4715 as example)

Catalog of pulsars

You can modify the catalog.json file manually using a text editor. If you are using Windows, it is strongly recommended to use an advanced text editor such as Notepad++ to avoid problems with end-of-line characters. (It will also color the JSON code and make it easier to read.)

Warning: Before editing your catalog.json, make a backup copy. Leaving out the smallest detail (such as a comma or forgetting to close a curly bracket) will prevent Stellarium from starting.

The path to the directory which contains catalog.json is something like:

• C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Roaming\Stellarium\modules\Pulsars (Windows Vista, Windows 7)
• C:\Documents and Settings\UserName\Application Data\Stellarium\modules\Pulsars (Windows XP)
• HomeDirectory/Library/Preferences/Stellarium/modules/Pulsars (Mac OS X)
• ~/.stellarium/modules/Pulsars (Linux)

(Note that this is a hidden folder, so in order to find it you may need to change your computer's settings to display hidden files and folders.)

Format of catalog

To add a new pulsar, open a new line after line 5 and paste the following, note commas and brackets, they are important:

For plugin series 0.1.x (Catalog version 1)

             "Pulsar designation":
             {
                   "RA": "Right ascension (J2000)",
                   "DE": "Declination (J2000)",
                   "distance": value of distance to pulsar (kpc),
                   "period": value of baricentric period (s),
                   "ntype": octal code of type of pulsar,
                   "We": value of equivalent width of the integrated pulse profile (ms),
                   "w50": value of profile width at 50% of peak (ms),
                   "s400": value of time averaged flux density at 400 MHz (mJy),
                   "s600": value of time averaged flux density at 600 MHz (mJy),
                   "s1400": value of time averaged flux density at 1400 MHz (mJy)
             },

For example, record for PSR J0014+4746:

		"PSR J0014+4746":
		{
			"RA": "00h14m17.74s",
			"DE": "+47d46m33.1s",
			"distance": 1.84,
			"period": 1.2406989780800000,
			"ntype": 0,
			"We": 155.00,
			"w50": 88.70,
			"s400": 14.00,
			"s600": 9.00,
			"s1400": 3.00
		},

For plugin series 0.2.x (Catalog version 2)

             "Pulsar designation":
             {
                   "RA": "Right ascension (J2000)",
                   "DE": "Declination (J2000)",
                   "notes": "type of pulsar",
                   "distance": value of distance based on electron density model (kpc),
                   "period": value of barycentric period of the pulsar (s),
                   "parallax": value of annular parallax (mas),
                   "bperiod": value of binary period of pulsar (days),
                   "pderivative": value of time derivative of barcycentric period (dimensionless),
                   "dmeasure": value of dispersion measure (cm^-3 pc),
                   "frequency": value of barycentric rotation frequency (Hz),
                   "eccentricity": value of eccentricity,                   
                   "w50": value of profile width at 50% of peak (ms),
                   "s400": value of time averaged flux density at 400 MHz (mJy),
                   "s600": value of time averaged flux density at 600 MHz (mJy),
                   "s1400": value of time averaged flux density at 1400 MHz (mJy)
             },

For example, record for PSR J0014+4746:

             "PSR J0014+4746":
             {
                   "distance": 1.82,
                   "dmeasure": 30.85,
                   "frequency": 0.805997239145,
                   "w50": 88.7,
                   "s400": 14,
                   "s600": 9,
                   "s1400": 3,
                   "RA": "00h14m17.75s",
                   "DE": "47d46m33.4s"
             },

Version history

Plug-in version	Stellarium version	Catalog version	Significant changes
0.1.2	0.11.2	1	First public version of plugin
0.2.0	0.11.4	2	Enchance catalog of pulsars

Acknowledgment

We thank the following people for their contribution and of the valuable comments:

• Vladimir Samodourov (Pushchino Radio Astronomy Observatory in Russia)
• Maciej Serylak (Nancay Radioastronomical Observatory in France)

How you can help

We are welcome bug reports, feature requests and feedback through the usual channels (trackers, forums and so on).