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