ABSTRACT
Astronomical catalogs are an invaluable resource toto the astrophotographer. One can easily imagine, although the first astronomers recorded the very brightest stars onto fanciful charts, as soon as telescopes were used to methodically survey the heavens, the number of objects increased exponentially. The "Guide Star Catalog" is important catalog, initially compiled to support the Hubble Space Telescope and also used by amateurs with plate-solving software. The astrophotographer has more objects to photograph than a lifetime of clear nights. The choice is bewildering and thankfully many planetarium programs offer recommendations for a given night. The huge astrometric databases are of more importance to the scientific community but can be used for plate solving and supernova detection in amateur systems. Most are available as free downloads from the Internet and most planetarium programs are able to load and access them selectively.
