Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams

CBAT "Transient Objects Confirmation Page" -- Key to Tabulated Columns

Below is a Key to the columns for the tabulated TOCP data:

Columns 1-21: Designation (three-letter designation in columns 1-3 describes the type of variable: PSN = (possible) supernova; PNV = (possible) nova; TCP = some other type of variable (or unknown).

Columns 25-39: Date in Universal Time (given as Year Month Date).

Column 40: Note column (* = discovery observation; # or lower-case letters indicate follow-up observation, with # = single line, a = line 1 of multiple lines, b = line 2 of multiple lines, etc.).

Columns 43-65: Postion (right ascension and declination, for equinox 2000.0), given to 0s.01 of R.A. and to 0".1 of Decl.

Columns 68-71: magnitude of object at time specified (column 73 gives the bandpass, thus: U = unfiltered CCD; v = visual; V = CCD V-band; R = CCD R-band; etc.)

Columns 75-79: offset of potential supernova in R.A. from presumed host galaxy, in arc seconds (maximum 9999), with column 79 the direction (E = east, W = west).

Columns 80-84: offset of potential supernova in Decl. from presumed host galaxy, in arc seconds (maximum 9999), with column 79 the direction (N = north, S = south).

Columns 87-95: "Locale", meaning the presumed host galaxy if a non-Milky-Way variable, or the 3-letter IAU constellation abbreviation if a Milky-Way variable. For presumed host galaxies, only use single upper-case letters in column 87, followed by several digits as appropriate, and only give galaxies for these catalogues, and in this order of usage: M = Messier; N = NGC; I = IC; U = UGC; G = MCG; P = PGC; E = ESO.

Column 97: 1-digit character specifying either the experience of the discoverer (0 = no previous CBAT-confirmed discoveries, 1 = one previous CBAT-confirmed discovery, ..., 9 = nine or more previous CBAT-confirmed discoveries) or the discovery group (given as Roman letters, to be assigned on a case-by-case basis as groups request that they be given a letter code to note that their group made the discovery). A key to such letter codes is given here.

Column 99: 1-digit character to specify the number of separate nights (arc) that the discoverer has positive images of the discovered object (may include images by other observers that the discoverer knows of), with a dash (-) meaning a single image on a single night, a zero (0) meaning multiple images on a single night, a "1" indicating a one-day arc (i.e., two nights), ..., and a "9" indicating an arc of nine or more days.

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