The VizieR database of astronomical catalogues

CDS, Observatoire Astronomique, UMR 7550, 11 rue de l'Université, F-67000 Strasbourg, France


Send offprint request to: F. Ochsenbein, e-mail: francois@astro.u-strasbg.fr

Received: 10 December 1999
Accepted: 17 January 2000

Abstract


 VizieR is a database grouping in an homogeneous way thousands of astronomical catalogues gathered for dec ades by the Centre de Données de Strasbourg (CDS) and participating institutes. The history and current status of this large collection is briefly presented, and the way these catalogues are being standardized to fit in the VizieR system is described. The architecture of the database is then presented, with emphasis on the management of links and of accesses to very large catalogues. Several query interfaces are currently available, making use of the ASU protocol, for browsing purposes or for use by other data processing systems such as visualisation tools.