Program Interface: Searching Catalogs
IRSA offers three program interfaces for searching catalogs. A brief description of each is given below, along with links to detailed instructions and examples.
Simple Cone Search (SCS)
SCS is a VO-compliant method of
searching catalogs for sources that lie within a
specified radius of any position on the sky. The output can be
VO
Table, IPAC
Table, Comma Separated Values (CSV) table, Tab Separated Values
table, or FITS table. The ability to upload a list of sources
positions is not supported. Users interested in table upload
functionality should use the TAP protocol (below).
Table Access Protocol (TAP)
TAP is a VO-compliant method of
searching catalogs. TAP allows cone, box, polygon, and
multi-position searches with optional SQL constraints, a variety of
output formats, and the option of selecting output columns.
IRSA Catalog Search API
This is an older API that does not conform to VO standards and is
included here for historical reasons. New users should choose from
either of the two protocols above.