The Hipparcos project

The RGO was involved with the Hipparcos project from 1981 to the project's completion in 1997. This was mainly working on the data reductions for the satellite, which were carried out by two consortia. The RGO was part of NDAC (Northern Data Analysis Consortium) along with Lund Observatory and Copenhagen University Observatory. The other data reduction consortium was called FAST.

The catalogue was released to the general astronomical community in May 1997.

The main source of information about Hipparcos is at ESTEC where Michael Perryman (the Project Scientist) has got a page on the Hipparcos Space Astrometry Mission.

Information about Hipparcos can also be found in an RGO leaflet on the Hipparcos project.

If you wish to interrogate the published Hipparcos or Tycho catalogues you can do this via the interface at the UK Astronomy Data Centre.

With the project now complete, plans are being drawn up for the next generation astrometric satellite for ESA. This is called Gaia. Click here if you want more information about the Gaia project.