Conventions

1. Every standard catalogue should start with a comment line describing its contents and giving the name of the originator and
2. If all of the objects in the catalogue have the same equinox, then this should be given at the beginning of the file, not repeated for every object.
3. The format should be as given in the examples below, i.e.:

   SOURCE OBJECT R hh mm ss.ss D +dd mm ss.s P/R +s.ssss P/D +s.sss EQ Jyyyy.y

   with the equinox omitted if it does not change from line to line.

4. The coordinate type (JULIAN, BESSELIAN or APPARENT) should be specified at the beginning of the file.
5. It is expected that each catalogue file will have an associated documentation file with the same name but with the extension .DOC.
6. Catalogues should be split by Right Ascension in order to minimise the number of records to be read in - there is no point storing objects if they are invisible.