Kepler Target Search Help

Use the Kepler Target Search form to find targets from the Kepler Input Catalog (KIC) and the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (IRT) catalog, AND believed to be "on or near the detector". The interface includes more targets, colors, and magnitudes than offered in the Kepler target search interface however the validity of the added fields has not been certified by the Kepler project. The table contains roughly 12.5 million entries. Of these, about 4.5 million are from the KIC, the rest are from the IRT, KIS, GALEX, SDSS, and UBV catalogs. Roughly 12.3 million targets are on the detector for at least one season. The added colors and magnitudes come from SDSS, GALEX (FUV, NUV), KIS, UBV, and IRT (J).

Note about the KIC astrometry (RA, Dec, proper motion, parallax). The source of the astrometric quantities depends on which catalog (or catalogs) contain data for a given star. To ensure the highest accuracy and to minimize systematic errors, the hierarchy for the choice of astrometric values is as follows:

• SCP (50 milliarcseconds but closer to Kepler epoch)
• Hipparcos (10 milliarcseconds)
• Tycho-2 for V brighter than 8.0 ( 20 milliarcseconds)
• UCAC2 (40 milliarcseconds)
• 2MASS (70 milliarcseconds)
• USNO-B1.0 (200 milliarcseconds)

Also note that KIC targets have four sets of the module, output, channel, row, and column parameters, one set for each season. Non-KIC targets just list the channel number. The season information is included in the name of the field (e.g. MODULE_SEASON_0, OUTPUT_SEASON_0, etc). Seasons run from 0 to 3, roughly corresponding to Summer through Spring (in the northern hemisphere), respectively. The web page /kepler/seasonstable.html will display a table of start dates, season number, and quarter number.

Kepler ID

A unique sequential integer ID assigned by Kepler project. Values run from 482,000 to over 13 million. Searches can be made for specific values (e.g., 12345678), ranges (e.g., 100 .. 150), or using < or > symbols (e.g., < 20). (See the MasterID field for a list of IDs including non-KIC targets.)

Data Availability Flag

• 0 = target has not been observed,
• 1 = target is either planned to be observed or has been observed but data has not yet been archived,
• 2 = data for the particular target has been archived.

It is expected that flag values will be updated quarterly.

Effective Temperature

Derived effective temperature. Currently values range from 3,105 to 19,337 K. Only KIC targets are included.

Catalogs

If set to "KIC Targets only", only targets listed in the Kepler Input Catalog are returned. KIC+UBV+KIS+GALEX+SDSS will alow targets in any of these catalogs to be retrieved. "Targets from all Catalogs" will search all the current targets (which basically adds IRT).

Currently there are a total of about 12 million targets. Of these 4.5 million are listed in the Kepler Input Catalog, 9.5 million in IRT, 4.5 million are in KIS, 4 million in USNOb, 2.8 million in UBV, 0.8 million in SDSS, and 0.2 million for GALEX. Of course many targets are found in more than one catalog.

Note that many fields in the table such as Kepler ID and Teff are only defined for KIC targets.

Seasons on CCD

Choose the periods for which targets must be on the detector. The default ("any") implies the target(s) must be on the detector for at least one season. The other options include:

• "all" (target must always be on the detector)
• "season_0" (target is on the detector for at least season_0),
• "season_1" (target is on the detector for at least season_1),
• "season_2" (target is on the detector for at least season_2),
• "season_3" (target is on the detector for at least season_3),
• "unspecified" (target is on or near the detector), Note that of the total ~12.5 million entries, roughly 75,000 are considered near, but never on, the detector. These entries are normally excluded from the search UNLESS the user selects the "unspecified" option. All the "near" targets are KIC targets since non-KIC targets are only included if they are on the detector for at least one season. See the calculating distances page for more details on how the "seasons on ccd" values were defined.

Minimum Distance from Edge

Specify the minimum distance a target (i.e., from the photometric aperture for most KIC targets and from the target position for non-KIC targets) may be from the edge of the detector for at least one season. For example, if you only want targets at least 50 pixels from the closest edge, enter 50. Range is -8 to 511 (negative distances were used for non-KIC targets). Distances for specific seasons can be specified using the "user-specified field" form elements. Note: do not use "<", ">", or other numerical operators for this form element. See the calculating distances page for more details on how these values were defined.

Color/Magnitude 1

A list of colors and magnitudes derived from the KIC, 2MASS, GALEX (NUV, FUV), KIS, UBV, SDSS, and IRT catalogs. Select the color or magnitude to query and enter the value in the adjacent box. Numerical operators can be included (e.g., for gr values less than 2, select "gr" from the menu and enter "< 2" for the value). Click on the "field descriptions" link to see the range of values for each entry.

Color/Magnitude 2

A list of colors and magnitudes derived from the KIC, 2MASS, GALEX (NUV, FUV), KIS, UBV, SDSS, and IRT catalogs. Select the color or magnitude to query and enter the value in the adjacent box. Numerical operators can be included (e.g., for gr values less than 2, select "gr" from the menu and enter "< 2" for the value). Click on the "field descriptions" link to see the range of values for each entry.

Condition flag

Flags various categories of data as a semi-colon separated list.
See the condition_flag page for currently flagged conditions.