NED History

April-August 2011 Revisions

Interface Enhancements

• Kinematic Local Standard of Rest (LSR) velocities added to Quantities Derived from Redshift 1986MNRAS.221.1023K
• PLEASE NOTE: The services introduced in December 2010 that generate User-Customized Data Tables include the capability to upload a list of sources and perform proximity based cross-matches with objects in NED.

Database Contents

• 2,869,332 Unique Objects (total: 167.5 million unique objects)
• 2,131,821 Objects Linked to 1,381 References (total: 8.76 million objects linked to 79,888 References)
• 4,360,178 Multi-Wavelength Cross-Identifications between Objects (total: 177.6 million cross-IDs)
• 23,561 Photometric Measurements (total: 1.72 billion Photometric Measurements)
• Redshifts for 1,286,619 Objects (total: 3.26 million objects with at least one Redshift Measurement)
• 467 detailed Object Notes (total: 67,350 notes)
• 37,472 Object Associations (total: 1,043,536 Associations)
• 726 Images (total: 2,571,905 Images)
• 47,559 Spectra (total: 339,023 Spectra)
• 1,371 Publication Abstracts (total: 56,884 abstracts)

Highlights include:

• Over 1,790,000 more galaxies from the Muenster Red Sky Survey (MRSS) 2003JAD.....9....1U
• Over 700,000 more galaxies from the Red-Sequence Cluster Survey (RCS) 2005ApJS..158..161H
• Over 110,000 galaxies and clusters from the Gaussian Mixture Brightest Cluster Galaxy sample (GMBCG) 2010ApJS..191..254H
• Over 95,000 more SWIRE sources in the Elais South-1 (ES1) and Subaru XMM Deep Survey (SXDS) patches of sky 2008MNRAS.386..697R
• About 90,500 Spitzer 24 micron and 70 micron objects around the South Ecliptic Pole (SEP) 2010ApJS..191..212S
• About 40,500 Galaxy Groups and Clusters using a Friends-of-Friends method 2006ApJS..167....1B
• Over 37,500 re-analyzed NVSS objects 2009ApJ...702.1230T
• Over 19,000 objects in the VIMOS VLT Deep Survey (VVDS) 2009A&A...495...53L
• Over 2,000 globular clusters around M87 2009ApJ...703...42P

Latest review papers in LEVEL 5 Knowledgebase for Extragalactic Astronomy and Cosmology

• INTERSTELLAR TURBULENCE I: OBSERVATIONS AND PROCESSES - Bruce G. Elmegreen & John Scalo (2004)
• X-RAY SPECTROSCOPY OF COOLING CLUSTERS - J. R. Peterson & A. C. Fabian (2006)
• ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI AT THE HALF-CENTURY MARK - Bradley Peterson (2011)
• REVERBERATION MAPPING OF THE BROAD-LINE REGION IN AGNs - Bradley Peterson (2011)
• SUPERMASSIVE BLACK HOLES AND THEIR RELATIONSHIPS WITH THEIR HOST GALAXIES - Bradley Peterson (2011)
• DATA MINING AND MACHINE LEARNING IN ASTRONOMY - Nicholas M. Ball & Robert J. Brunner (2010)
• STAR FORMATION IN GALAXY INTERACTIONS AND MERGERS - Frederic Bournaud (2010)
• STAR FORMING DWARF GALAXIES - Nils Bergvall (2011)
• ON THE LIVES OF EXTRA-GALACTIC RADIO SOURCES: THE FIRST 100,000 YEARS - Ignas Snellen and Richard Schilizzi (2002)
• STAR-FORMATION HISTORIES, ABUNDANCES, AND KINEMATICS OF DWARF GALAXIES IN THE LOCAL GROUP - Eline Tolstoy et al. (2009)
• BIRTH, LIFE AND SURVIVAL OF TIDAL DWARF GALAXIES - Pierre-Alain Duc (2010)

Highlights of Recent Additions to Photometry

• Visual : 119 sources with Hα fluxes from Martinez et al. 2010AJ....139.1199M
• XRay : 1887 sources with XMM 0.5-10 keV fluxes from Cappelluti et al. 2009A&A...497..635C
• Radio : 367 sources with RATAN 3.9 GHz fluxes from Larionov et al. 1994A&AS..106..119L
• IR : 70 sources with Spitzer 3.6-160 micron fluxes from Hernan-Caballero et al. 2009MNRAS.395.1695H

Latest Images in NED

• 164 Hα, I, R, and V images from An Observational Limit on the Dwarf Galaxy Population of the Local Group-Alan B. Whiting et al. (2007)
• 491 U, B, V, J, H, and K images from Broadband Imaging of a Large Sample of Irregular Galaxies-Deidre A. Hunter and Bruce G. Elmegreen (2006)
• 71 FUV and NUV images from Galex Ultraviolet Imaging of Dwarf Galaxies and Star Formation Rates-Diedra A. Hunter et al. (2010)

Latest Spectra in NED

• 55 optical spectra from A Spectrophotometric Atlas of Galaxies-Kennicutt (1992)
• 1054 optical spectra from The FIRST Bright Quasar Survey. II-White et al. (2000)
• 339 optical spectra from Spectrophotometry of galaxies in the Virgo cluster-Gavazzi et al. (2004)
• 45,921 optical spectra from The DEEP2 Redshift Survey Data Release 3
• 190 optical spectra from An optical spectroscopic survey of the 3CR radio galaxies with z < 0.3-Buttiglione et.al (2009)

---

December 2010-April 2011 Revisions

Interface Enhancements

• A new selectable field, Galactic Extinction ( Burstein and Heiles 1982), has been added to the User-Customized Data Tables By Name, Near Name/Position, and By Classifications.
• Quick-Look Photometry and Luminosities now include the brightest flux (with errors, if available) in each of ten bands: Gamma-ray, X-ray, UV, Optical, Near-IR, Mid-IR, Far-IR, Sub-millimeter, Millimeter, and Radio. Here is an example for Markarian 273.
• PLEASE NOTE: The services introduced in December 2010 that generate User-Customized Data Tables include the capability to upload a list of sources and perform proximity based cross-matches with objects in NED.

Database Contents

The following data have been added to NED since the previous public update:
• 1,147,868 Unique Objects (total: 164.7 million unique objects)
• 522,157 Objects Linked to 1,937 References (total: 6.63 million objects linked to 78,507 References)
• 1,882,281 Multiwavelength Cross-Identifications between Objects (total: 173.3 million cross-IDs)
• 303,150 Photometric Measurements (total: 1.72 billion Photometric Measurements)
• Redshifts for 104,489 Objects (total: 1.97 million objects with at least one Redshift Measurement)
• 177 detailed Object Notes (total: 66,883 notes)
• 349,592 Object Associations (total: 1,006,064 Associations)
• 1,918 Publication Abstracts (total: 55,513 abstracts)

Highlights include:

• 400,000 WINGS sources around 77 clusters 2009A&A...497..667V
• 110,000 6dF redshifts with uncertainties 2009MNRAS.399..683J
• 99,000 objects from the UKIDSS-UDS 2009ApJ...691.1879W
• 62,000+ MUSYC (Multiwavelength Survey by Yale-Chile) UBVRIz' sources 2006ApJS..162....1G
• 48,000 objects in the HDF area 2004AJ....127..180C
• 37,000 LIGO targets 2008ApJ...675.1459K
• 19,000 ROSAT Bright Source Catalog objects 2009ApJS..184..138H
• 10,000 x-ray sources in 182 galaxy clusters 2009MNRAS.392.1509G
• 340,000 association records for unidentified NVSS sources 1998AJ....115.1693C
• 16,000 association records for unidentified CSC sources 2010ApJS..189...37E

Latest review papers in LEVEL 5 Knowledgebase for Extragalactic Astronomy and Cosmology

• TRIGGERED STAR FORMATION - Bruce G. Elmegreen (2010)
• STAR FORMATION DURING GALAXY FORMATION - Bruce G. Elmegreen (2010)
• STAR FORMATION IN MOLECULAR CLOUDS - Mark R. Krumholz (2011)
• THE CURRENT UNDERSTANDING ON THE UV UPTURN - Sukyoung K. Yi (2008)
• COSMIC MAGNETIC FIELDS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR HE PARTICLE ANISOTROPIES - Philipp P. Kronberg (2010)
• NGC 5128: THE GIANT BENEATH - Gretchen L. H. Harris (2010)
• STRUCTURE, MASS AND STABILITY OF GALACTIC DISKS - P.C. van der Kruit (2010)
• RINGS AND BARS: UNMASKING SECULAR EVOLUTION OF GALAXIES - J.H. Knapen (2010)
• THE EVOLUTION OF GALAXIES: AN INFRARED PERSPECTIVE - C.C. Popescu & R.J. Tuffs (2010)
• HISTORY OF STAR FORMATION OF EARLY TYPE GALAXIES FROM INTEGRATED LIGHT: CLUES FROM STELLAR AGES AND ABUNDANCES - Ricardo P. Schiavon (2010)

Highlights of Recent Additions to Photometry

• XRay: 1135 sources at 0.5-8 keV (Chandra) from Green et al. 2009ApJ...690..644G
• Visual: 9968 sources with F814W (HST) magnitudes from Lilly et 2009ApJS..184..218L
• MIR: 108 sources at 6, 15, 20, 25, 30 microns from Veilleux et al. 2009ApJS..182..628V
• MM: 61 sources at 1.2 mm (MAMBO) from Lonsdale et al. 2009ApJ...692..422L
• Radio: 37 sources at 1.4 GHz from Hunter et al. 1994ApJS...91...79H
• Radio: 541 sources at 21cm (Arecibo) from Martin et al. 2009ApJS..183..214M

Latest Images in NED

• UBVRIz' images for more than 62,000 objects from The Multiwavelength Survey by Yale-Chile (MUSYC) ... Eric Gawiser et al. (2006).

---

September - December 2010 Revisions

• User-Customized Data Tables By Name, Near Name/Position, or By Classifications. A user-specified list of output data fields can now be selected for up to 500 input source names or positions. Users may select a search radius up to 30 arcseconds; bar-, tab-, or space-delimited files; and output in plain text or HTML. Among the output fields that may be chosen are:
  • NED's preferred object names, positions (RA/Dec, l/b), and position reference code
  • Basic Data, including preferred object type, essential notes, radial velocity and/or redshift, redshift quality, redshift reference code, and quick look magnitude
  • Data counts and links for cross references, notes, photometry, positions, redshifts, diameters, associations, images, spectra, and classifications
  • Galaxy morphology, activity type, hierarchy, kinematics, luminosity class, radio morphology, and distance indicator
  • Photometry from ROSAT, SDSS, RC3, APM, 2MASS, IRAS, NVSS, FIRST, and SUMSS
  • Diameters from SDSS, RC3, SDSS, and ESO-LV
  The output data may be as-published, NED homogenized, or both. The "flat" table output joins data from many different NED DBMS relations and makes possible vastly simplified data analyses. More options will be added in future releases.
• Quick-look Photometry and Luminosities. The search results page now provides quick-look photometry, with uncertainties, from RC3 or SDSS, 2MASS, IRAS, and NVSS or SUMSS, with other major catalogs planned for future releases. In addition, absolute magnitudes and monochromatic luminosities are computed using redshift-independent distances when available, otherwise using the best available redshift with cosmological corrections. Click here for an example.
• By Classification searches now include the capability of searching by Distance Indicators, Hierarchy, and Kinematics.
• Redshift-Independent Distances now includes brief explanations and references to examples for most of the distance determination methods in current use. Over 2,000 new distances are included -- more than 36,000 distances for over 9,000 galaxies are now in NED's distance database -- as is a separate table of 290 distance estimates made before 1930. These "historical" estimates give a unique perspective on the progress our science has made over the past century.

Database Contents

The following data have been added to NED since the previous public update:
• 328,372 Unique Objects (total: 163.2 million unique objects)
• 491,032 Objects Linked to 274 References (total: 6.10 million objects linked to 76,570 References)
• 658,430 Multiwavelength Cross-Identifications between Objects (total: 171.4 million cross-IDs)
• 33,999 Photometric Measurements (total: 1.72 billion Photometric Measurements)
• Redshifts for 260,143 Objects (total: 1.87 million objects with at least one Redshift Measurement)
• 229,734 Detailed Classifications for 108,003 objects (total: 396,548 Detailed Classifications for 208,144 objects)
• 322 detailed Object Notes (total: 66,706 notes)
• 2,092 Redshift-Independent Distances for 105 objects (total: 36,411 Redshift-Independent Distances for 9193 objects)
• 16,216 Object Associations (total: 656,472 Associations)
• 1,185 Publication Abstracts (total: 53,595 abstracts)

Highlights include:

• 230,000 objects from the SWIRE catalog 2008MNRAS.386..697R
• 106,000 Chandra Source Catalog v1.1 objects 2010ApJS..189...37E
• 13,000 objects in the Extragalactic Distance Database 2009AJ....138.1938C
• 6,000 objects and redshifts from the WINGS survey 2009A&A...495..707C

Latest review papers in LEVEL 5 Knowledgebase for Extragalactic Astronomy and Cosmology

• Observational Comparison of Star Formation in Different Galaxy Types - Eva G. Grebel (2010)
• Extreme Star Formation - Jean L. Turner (2009)
• Fitting the Integrated Spectral Energy Distributions of Galaxies - C.J. Walcher et al. (2010)

Highlights of Recent Additions to Photometry

• XRay: 1343 sources at 0.7-7 keV, 2-10 keV, 0.7-2 keV (ASCA) from Ueda et al. 2001ApJS..133....1U
• Visual: 235 sources in BVRI from Ojha et al. 2009AJ....138..845O
• Mid-IR: 209 sources at 24 microns (Spitzer) from Treister et al. 2008ApJ...679..140T
• Radio: 12,232 sources at 1325 MHz (WSRT) from Rengelink et al. 1997A&AS..124..259R

Latest Images in NED

• 2,658 multi-wavelength images for 258 galaxies from Dale et al. 2009ApJ...703..517D

Additions to Detailed Galaxy Classifications

• 229,734 Classifications and Attributes added for 108,003 objects from 1,287 papers and catalogs.

---

May - September 2010 Revisions

• Additions to LEVEL5
  • Star Formation Histories of Dwarf Galaxies from the Colour-Magnitude Diagrams of Their Resolved Stellar Populations - M. Cignoni and Monica Tosi (2010)
  • X-raying Galaxies: A Chandra Legacy - Q. Daniel Wang (2010)
  • Reverberation Mapping of Active Galactic Nuclei - B.M. Peterson and K. Horne (2006)
  • Dark Matter: A Primer - Katherine Garrett and Gintaras Duda (2010)
  • Secular Evolution and the Formation of Pseudobulges in Disk Galaxies - John Kormendy and Robert C. Kennicutt, Jr. (2004)
• Additional Spectra
  • 103 optical spectra from An Optical and Radio Survey of the Nuclei of Bright Galaxies, T. Heckman et al (1980).
  • 75 HI spectra from H I spectra of Starburst and Seyfert Galaxies, E. Davoust and T. Contini (2004).
  • 49 near-IR spectra from Near Infrared Spectral Atlas of Active Galactic Nuclei, R. Riffel et al. (2006).
  • 730 HI spectra from The Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA Survey. III. H I spectra of the North Virgo Cluster Region, R. Giovanelli et al (2004).

---

March - May 2010 Revisions

NED-D Galaxy Distance Database is now available as a comma-separated-value (CSV) file. See the introduction to the NED-D Metric Distance Compilation for more information on this file.

Database Contents

The following data have been added to NED since the previous public update:
• 74,233 Unique Objects (total: 163.2 million unique objects)
• 349,588 Objects Linked to 1,971 References (total: 5.61 million objects linked to 75,372 References)
• 206,136 Multiwavelength Cross-Identifications between Objects (total: 170.7 million cross-IDs)
• 97,014 Photometric Measurements (total: 1.72 billion Photometric Measurements)
• Redshifts for 20,949 Objects (total: 1.61 million objects with at least one Redshift Measurement)
• 16,274 Detailed Classifications for 10,144 objects (total: 166,814 Detailed Classifications for 134,461 objects)
• 1,270 detailed Object Notes (total: 66,384 notes)
• 860 Redshift-Independent Distances for 153 objects (total: 34,319 Redshift-Independent Distances for 9088 objects)
• 811 Object Associations resolved (total: 640,256 Associations)
• 797 Spectra (total: 291 thousand Spectra)
• 1,961 Publication Abstracts (total: 52,410 abstracts)

Highlights include:

• 57,437 Spitzer EGSIRAC objects from Barmby, P. et al 2008ApJS..177..431B
• 13,764 2MASS Groups of galaxies from Crook, A.et al 2008ApJ...685.1320C
• 13,704 CRATES 8.4 GHz Radio Sources from Healey, S. 2007ApJS..171...61H
• 10,643 zCOSMOS objects from the Redshift Survey of Lilly S. et al 2007ApJS..172...70L
• 9,008 Blue Stellar Objects in the SDSS footprint from the PB survey 1977A&AS...28..123B, 1980A&AS...39...39B, and 1984A&AS...58..565B.
• 6,909 HST ACS objects in the GOODS North field from Barger, A. et al 2008ApJ...689..687B
• 3,154 K-band QSOs in the UKIDSS Early Data Release from Maddox, N. et al 2008MNRAS.386.1605M
• 2,836 GMRT objects in the Lockman Hole field from Garn, T. et al 2008MNRAS.387.1037G
• 2,500 GMRT objects in the ELAIS North field from Garn, T. et al 2008MNRAS.383...75G
• 2,534 nearby galaxies from Tully, B. et al 2008ApJ...676..184T
• 1,018 Chandra sources in the CDFS from Cardamone, C. et al 2008ApJ...680..130C
• Supernovae reported in CBETs up to April 30, 2010.

Latest review papers in LEVEL 5 Knowledgebase for Extragalactic Astronomy and Cosmology

• Radio and Millimeter Continuum Surveys and their Astrophysical Implications by G. De Zotti et al. (2010)
• A Compendium of Far-Infrared Line and Continuum Emission for 227 Galaxies Observed by the Infrared Space Observatory by J.R. Brauher et al. (2008)

Highlights of Recent Additions to Photometry

• Radio: 111 sources at 86 GHz (VLBI) from Lee et al. 2008AJ....136..159L
• Sub-millimeter: 45 sources at 850 microns (SCUBA) from Wang et al. 2004ApJ...613..655W
• Near-IR: 399 sources at K_s (NTT) from Mercurio et al. 2008MNRAS.387.1374M
• Visual: 771 sources in Cousins R from Caretta et al. 2004AJ....128.2642C
• Ultraviolet: 1,045 GALEX sources from Rawle et al. 2008MNRAS.385.2097R
• X-ray: 525 sources at 0.5-2 2-8 keV (Chandra) from Steffen et al. 2004AJ....128.1483S

Latest Spectra in NED

• 570 optical spectra for 417 nearby galaxies from An Integrated Spectrophotometric Survey of Nearby Star-forming Galaxies J. Moustakas and R.C. Kennicutt (2006).
• ISO LWS spectra for 227 galaxies from A Compendium of Far-Infrared Line and Continuum Emission for 227 Galaxies Observed by ISO J. Brauher et al. (2008).

Additions to Detailed Galaxy Classifications

• Galaxy Morphology:
  • 16,274 entries from The ESO/Uppsala survey of the ESO(B) atlas, 1982, Munich: European Southern Observatory (ESO). Lauberts, A.

Updates to Classifications Interface

A number of new features have been added to the result pages of the Search Classifications by Object Name service. Here is an example.
• A pre-cutout image from the first Digital Sky Survey is shown near the top of the result page for some objects. It also links to the image search results page of the target object. This service is preliminary and currently does not have full coverage of all objects with classifications. This issue will be addressed in the next release.
• An information link for retrieving classification descriptions and other details can be found preceding each of the NED Homogenized Classifications, for example:  ⁱ  LC IV. These are also found on the Search for Objects by Classifications Form.
• You can now trigger a search for objects by selecting a combination of classifications found in your target object by using the Find Similar Objects button, located on the far right column of the results table.
By clicking on the  i  icon-link as in:  ⁱ  LC IV, you can retrieve the following information for the NED Homogenized Classification:
• Description of the classification
• Notes associated with the classification (when applicable). These may contain links to the reference code which defines the classification.
• The number of data entries and unique objects with that particular type of classification along with a link to retrieve the list of objects
• List of Reference Codes currently in NED that carry the particular type of classification

---

January - March 2010 Revisions

• NED-D galaxy distance database expanded
  • More than 30 thousand distances for nearly 10 thousand galaxies based on redshift-independent determinatons published up to Jan. 1, 2009, gleaned from a comprehensive literature search of the NASA Astrophysical Data System (ADS).
  • Over 8 thousand estimates for nearly 2 thousand galaxies based on primary methods with precisions typically better than 10%, including those based on Cepheids, Type Ia Supernovae, Tip of the Red Giant Branch, and other standard candles, and those based on Masers, Globular Cluster radii, and other standard rulers.
  • More than 25 thousand estimates for nearly 8 thousand galaxies based on secondary methods with precisions typically better than 20%, including those based on Tully-Fisher, Fundamental Plane, and other secondary methods.
  • Retrieve all published estimates for a particular galaxy via Redshift Independent Distances.
• Additions to LEVEL5
  • X-ray Spectroscopy of Galaxy Clusters - Hans Böhringer and Norbert Werner (2009)
  • What Broad Emission Lines Tell Us About How Active Galactic Nuclei Work - C. Martin Gaskell (2009)
  • Double-Barred Galaxies - Peter Erwin (2010)
  • Dark Matter - Jaan Einasto (2009)
  • The Warm Ionized Medium in Spiral Galaxies - L.M. Haffner et al. (2009)
• Additions to Detailed Galaxy Classifications
  • Galaxy Morphology:
    • 18 entries from Eighteen possible galaxies in Puppis,
      Fitzgerald, M. P., 1974, A&A, 31, 467.
    • 264 entries from Distances to Galaxies from the Correlation between Luminosities and Line Widths. III. Cluster Template and Global Measurement of H₀,
      Tully, R. Brent; Pierce, Michael J., 2000, ApJ, 533, 744.
    • 447 entries from The luminosity function of the Virgo Cluster from M_B = -22 to -11,
      Trentham, Neil; Hodgkin, Simon, 2002, MNRAS, 333, 423.
    • 15 entries from On the evolutionary status of early-type galaxies in clusters at z~ 0.2 - I. The Fundamental Plane,
      Fritz, Alexander; Ziegler, Bodo L.; Bower, Richard G.; Smail, Ian; Davies, Roger L., 2005, MNRAS, 358, 233.
    • 18 entries from A Chandra and XMM-Newton study of the wide-angle tail radio galaxy 3C465,
      Hardcastle, M. J.; Sakelliou, I.; Worrall, D. M., 2005, MNRAS, 359, 1007.
    • 8 entries from Disturbed isolated galaxies: indicators of a dark galaxy population?,
      Karachentsev, I. D.; Karachentseva, V. E.; Huchtmeier, W. K., 2006, A&A, 451, 817.
    • 125 entries from Faint U-Band Dropouts in the WFPC2 Parallels of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field,
      Wadadekar, Yogesh; Casertano, Stefano; de Mello, Duilia, 2006, AJ, 132, 1023.
  • Spectral Type:
    • 27 Seyferts from Spectroscopic study of the CfA sample of Seyfert galaxies,
      Osterbrock, Donald E.; Martel, Andre, 1993, ApJ, 414, 552.
    • 74 AGNs from XMM-Newton observations of the Lockman Hole IV: spectra of the brightest AGN,
      Mateos, S.; Barcons, X.; Carrera, F. J.; Ceballos, M. T.; Hasinger, G.; Lehmann, I.; Fabian, A. C.; Streblyanska, A., 2005, A&A, 444, 79.
    • 6 Seyferts from Size and properties of the narrow-line region in Seyfert-1 galaxies from spatially-resolved optical spectroscopy,
      Bennert, N.; Jungwiert, B.; Komossa, S.; Haas, M.; Chini, R., 2006, A&A, 459, 55.
    • 10 BL Lacs and QSOs from ESO Very Large Telescope Optical Spectroscopy of BL Lacertae Objects. II. New Redshifts, Featureless Objects, and Classification Assessments,
      Sbarufatti, B.; Treves, A.; Falomo, R.; Heidt, J.; Kotilainen, J.; Scarpa, R., 2006, AJ, 132, 1.
• New Images
  • CFHT R-band images from The Ursa Major cluster of galaxies - III. Optical observations of dwarf galaxies and the luminosity function down to M_R_ = -11 N. Trentham et al (2001).
  • H{alpha}, and R-band images for ten nearby galaxies from Far-Ultraviolet and H{alpha} Imaging of Nearby Spiral Galaxies: The OB Stellar Population in the Diffuse Ionized Gas C. Hoopes et al (2001).
  • High-resolution IRAS images for interacting galaxies from An IRAS High Resolution Image Restoration (HIRES) Atlas of All Interacting Galaxies in the IRAS Revised Bright Galaxy Sample J.A. Surace et al (2004).
  • Near-IR images for NGC 5394/95 from The Interacting Galaxy Pair NGC 5394/95: Near-Infrared Photometry, Structure, and Morphology I. Puerari et al (2004).
  • H{alpha} and R-band images from An Atlas of H{alpha} and R Images and Radial Profiles of 29 Bright Isolated Spiral Galaxies R. Koopmann and J. Kenney (2006).
  • VLBA 5-GHz images from The VLBA Imaging and Polarimetry Survey at 5 GHz J. Helmboldt et al (2007).
  • BLAST submillimeter images for seven nearby galaxies from BLAST Observations of Resolved Galaxies: Temperature Profiles and the Effect of Active Galactic Nuclei on FIR to Submillimeter Emission D. Wiebe et al (2009).
• New Spectra
  • Optical spectra for BL Lac objects from European Southern Observatory Very Large Telescope Optical Spectroscopy of BL Lacertae Objects. III. An Extension of the Sample B. Sbarufatti et al (2009).
  • Optical spectra for BL Lac objects from ESO Very Large Telescope Optical Spectroscopy of BL Lacertae Objects. II. New Redshifts, Featureless Objects, and Classification Assessments B. Sbarufatti et al (2006).
  • Optical spectra for BL Lac objects from ESO Very Large Telescope Optical Spectroscopy of BL Lacertae Objects. I. New Redshifts B. Sbarufatti et al (2005).
  • Optical spectra for BL Lac objects from Optical spectroscopy of BL Lacertae objects. Broad lines, companion galaxies, and redshift lower limits B. Sbarufatti et al (2006).
  • Optical spectra for BL Lac objects from Optical spectroscopy of BL Lac objects: New redshifts and mis-identified sources N. Carangelo et al (2003).

---

26 January 2010 Revisions

• Additions to LEVEL5
  • Surface Brightness Fluctuations as Stellar Population Indicators - John P. Blakeslee (2009)
  • TeV Gamma Ray Astronomy - Wei Cui (2009)
  • The X-ray Jets of Active Galaxies - D.M. Worrall (2009)
• Additions to Detailed Galaxy Classifications
  • Galaxy Morphology:
    • 11,670 entries from the Uppsala General Catalogue of Galaxies (UGC),
      Nilson, P. 1973, Acta Universitatis Upsalienis, Nova Regiae Societatis Upsaliensis, Series V:A, Vol 1.
  • Radio Morphology:
    • 181 classifications from Bright radio sources at 178 MHz - Flux densities, optical identifications and the cosmological evolution of powerful radio galaxies,
      Laing, R.A., Riley, J.M., Longair, M.S., 1983, MNRAS, 204, 151.
  • Spectral Type:
    • Over 80,000 QSOs, and 19,000 AGNs and BL Lacs from A Catalogue of Quasars and Active Nuclei: 12th edition (VCV2006),
      Véron-Cetty, M.P. and Véron, P. 2006, A&A, 445, 773. (Approximately 100,000 of the 108,000 classifications in VCV2006 have been incorporated into NED; the remaining ~8,000 classifications require validation of candidate cross-matches.)
    • 101 entries from Star-burst galactic nuclei,
      Balzano, V.A., 1983, ApJ, 268, 602.
  • Luminosity Class:
    • 45 HyLIRGs from Hyperluminous infrared galaxies,
      Rowan-Robinson, M., 2000, MNRAS, 316, 885.
    • 12,658 van den Bergh/DDO luminosity classes from Third Reference Catalogue of Bright Galaxies, (electronic) version 3.9 (RC3.9),
      1994. de Vaucouleurs, G., de Vaucouleurs, A., Corwin, H.G., Buta, R.J., Paturel, G., and Fouque, P.
    • 639 DDO luminosity classes from Revised Shapley-Ames Catalog (RSA),
      Sandage, A.R. and Tammann, G.A. 1981, Washington: Carnegie Institution.
    • Uppsala General Catalogue of Galaxies (UGC),
      Nilson, P. 1973, Acta Universitatis Upsalienis, Nova Regiae Societatis Upsaliensis, Series V:A, Vol 1.
• New Images
  • Spitzer MIPS images for M33 from Tabatabaei et al. 2007A&A...466..509T

Highlights of New Content and User Interface Upgrades in the January 2010 (N20.0) Release of NED

Detailed Galaxy Classifications and New Query Functionality

Morphological and spectral classifications listed in the Basic Data section of NED's object query results were intended only to provide a quick overview of the galaxy's properties; therefore, they are unreferenced and cannot be queried. Galaxy classifications and attributes derived from them are now being input into the database with references and detailed metadata such as the observed bandpass and region of interest. Classifications are provided in their originally published form, and standardized versions are also assigned to enable queries that span over all relevant classifications regardless of their origin. Object query reports include a new Classifications section providing fully referenced and qualified classifications when they are available, with links to retrieve more details. In addition, NED is introducing two services related to this new extension of the database:

• Capability is provided to Query Galaxy Classifications by Object Name. For example:
  • NGC 1275
  • MESSIER 087
• Capability is provided to Query Objects by Classifications, Types, Attributes. This service enables the user to select objects in the database that match constraints in up to four different domains (categories): Galaxy Morphology, Radio Morphology, Spectral Type (Activity), and Luminosity Class. Derived attributes are also provided that permit searches across various classifications that share common traits. For example, samples of objects can be constructed containing:
  • Galaxies with morphological type SBa
  • Spiral galaxies of any sub-type (Sa, Sab, Sc, Sd) that are also barred
  • Galaxies with a "peculiar" morphology and nuclear Spectral Type Seyfert 2
  • Galaxies with morphological type E and nuclear Spectral Type LINER
  • Galaxies with Luminosity Class ULIRG and Spectral Type Seyfert 1
  • Galaxies with Radio Morphology FR I and Spectral Type LINER

These services utilize a new database extension to NED that initially contains over 38 thousand galaxy classifications for more than 37 thousand galaxies collated from the following catalogs and journal articles in each of the four categories:

• Galaxy Morphology:
  • Third Reference Catalogue of Bright Galaxies, (electronic) version 3.9 (RC3.9), 1994.
    de Vaucouleurs, G., de Vaucouleurs, A., Corwin, H.G., Buta, R.J., Paturel, G., and Fouque, P.
  • Revised Shapley-Ames Catalog (RSA),
    Sandage, A.R. and Tammann, G.A. 1981, Washington: Carnegie Institution.
• Radio Morphology:
  • The morphology of extragalactic radio sources of high and low luminosity ,
    Fanaroff, B.L. and Riley, J.M. 1974, MNRAS, 167, 31.
• Spectral Type:
  • A Catalogue of Quasars and Active Nuclei: 12th edition (VCV2006),
    Véron-Cetty, M.P. and Véron, P. 2006, A&A, 445, 773. (Objects in the AGN and BL Lac tables of the VCV catalogue with cross-identifications confirmed by NED are in the initial release; the QSOs and remaining AGNs will be included in an update coming soon.)
• Luminosity Class:
  • The IRAS Revised Bright Galaxy Sample,
    Sanders, D.B., Mazzarella, J.M., Kim, D.-C., Surace, J.A., Soifer, B.T., 2003, AJ, 126, 1607.
  • The IRAS 1 Jy Survey of Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies. I. The Sample and Luminosity Function,
    Kim, D.-C. and Sanders, D.B., 1998, ApJS, 119, 41.
  • The ultraluminous and hyperluminous infrared galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey and 6dF Galaxy Survey,
    Hwang, Ho Seong, Serjeant, Stephen, Lee, Myung Gyoon, Lee, Kang Hwan, White, Glenn J., 2007, MNRAS, 375, 115.

Galaxy classifications and attributes from the astrophysics literature are being added on an ongoing basis to appear in future NED updates.

Database Contents

The following data have been added to NED since the previous public update:
• 132 thousand objects (total: 163 million unique objects)
• 288,316 objects linked to 1,804 journal articles and catalogs (total: 5.26 million objects linked to 73,400 journal articles)
• 489 thousand multiwavelength cross-identifications between objects (total: 170 million cross-IDs)
• 453 thousand object Associations (total: 641,067)
• 140 thousand photometric measurements (total: 1.72 billion measurements)
• Redshifts for 115 thousand objects (total: 1.58 million objects with at least one redshift measurement)
• 63 thousand images (total: 2.25 million images)
• 233 thousand spectra (total: 268 thousand spectra)
• Data integrated from 5,046 new journal articles (total: 73,400 articles)
• 1788 publication abstracts (total: 50,449 abstracts)
• 115 detailed object notes (total: 65,071 notes)

Highlights include:

• 68,311 VLA Low-frequency Sky Survey (VLSS) objects from Cohen, A. et al 2007AJ....134.1245C
• 13,817 DEEP2 objects from Data Release 3 2007DEEP2.3...0000:
• 9,452 COSMOS-P objects from Faure, C. et al 2008ApJS..176...19F
• 8,981 VIMOS VLT Deep Survey (VVDS) objects from Le Fevre, O. et al 2005A&A...439..845L
• 3,389 XMM-Large Scale Structure (XLSS) objects from Pierre, M. et al 2007MNRAS.382..279P
• Supernovae reported in CBETs up to Sept. 30, 2009.

Latest review papers in LEVEL 5 Knowledgebase for Extragalactic Astronomy and Cosmology

• THE STAR FORMATION HISTORIES OF THE M31 AND M33 SPHEROIDS - T.M. Brown (2009)
• THE PEAK REGION OF THE EXTRAGALACTIC BACKGROUND RADIATION - M. Ajello (2009)
• STAR FORMATION HISTORIES OF RESOLVED GALAXIES - M. Tosi (2009)
• THE CHALLENGE OF MODELLING GALACTIC DISKS - A. Burkert (2009)
• LOPSIDED SPIRAL GALAXIES - C.J. Jog and F. Combes (2009)
• SECULAR EVOLUTION IN DISK GALAXIES: PSEUDOBULGE GROWTH AND THE FORMATION OF SPHEROIDAL GALAXIES - J. Kormendy and D.B. Fisher (2008)
• KINEMATICAL STRUCTURE OF THE MAGELLANIC SYSTEM - R.P. van der Marel et al. (2009)
• COSMOLOGISTS IN THE DARK - V.J. Martinez and V. Trimble (2008)
• CLUSTERS OF GALAXIES: BEYOND THE THERMAL VIEW - J.S. Kaastra et al. (2008)
• MARKARIAN GALAXIES. I. THE OPTICAL DATABASE AND ATLAS - A. Petrosian et al. (2007)
• PARTICLE ACCELERATION MECHANISMS - V. Petrosian and A.M. Bykov (2008)
• MOLECULAR GAS AT HIGH REDSHIFT - P.M. Solomon and P.A. Vanden Bout (2005)

Highlights of Recent Additions to Photometry

• XRay: 3,389 sources at 0.5-2, 2-10 keV (XMM) from Pierre, M. et al 2007MNRAS.382..279P
• Radio: 68,311 sources at 74 MHz (VLA) from Cohen, A. et al 2007AJ....134.1245C
• MIR: 142 sources at 12 microns (ISOCAM) from Seymour, N. et al 2007A&A...475..791S
• VIS: 139 sources at F814W, F606W (HST) from DeGraaff, R. et al 2007ApJ...671.1624D
• FUV: 1256 sources at 1516 A (GALEX) from Buat, V. et al 2007ApJS..173..404B

Latest Images in NED

• Spitzer IRAC images from A Spitzer IRAC Census of the Asymptotic Giant Branch Populations in Local Group Dwarfs. I. WLM D.C. Jackson et al (2007).
• HI maps and velocity fields from The Westerbork HI Survey Of Irregular and Spiral Galaxies, WHISP J.M. van der Hulst (2002).
• HI maps from Neutral hydrogen in nearby elliptical and lenticular galaxies: the continuing formation of early-type galaxies R. Morganti et al (2006).
• Radio continuum imaging at 18 and 22 cm from The Westerbork SINGS survey. I. Overview and image atlas R. Braun et al (2007).
• 5 GHz VLBI images and maps of 1127 sources from The VLBA Imaging and Polarimetry Survey at 5 GHz J.F. Helmboldt et al (2007).

Latest Spectra in NED

• 233,221 FITS spectra from the final release of the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey (2dFGRS) (Colless, M. et al 2003) have been integrated into NED. Each spectrum is configured with extensive metadata, a quick-look plot, and a figure showing the aperture overlaid on an optical image. Using the query form Spectra Search, which is available from the Spectra link on NED's main menu, these and thousands of other spectra ranging from X-rays through 21 cm H I observations can be queried by Object Name, Reference, Bandpass, or spectral Line. Previously established cross-identifications of 2dF sources with other measurements in the database enable users to view the spectra in context with other information in NED. The remaining 16,000 2dFGRS spectra will be included in NED soon. Examples:
  • Spectra for NGC 4643 (Includes spectra from 2dF, Palomar 5m, and HI 21cm from Nancay)
  • Spectra for NGC 5257 (Includes spectra from 2dF, Univ. Hawaii 2.2m, and HI 21cm from Nancay)
  • Browse all available 2dFGRS Spectra
  We thank Matthew Colless (AAO) and the 2dFGRS team for making this rich data set available.
• 550 HI spectra from Kinematics of the Local Universe. XIII. 21-cm line measurements of 452 galaxies with the Nancay radiotelescope, JHK Tully-Fisher relation, and preliminary maps of the peculiar velocity field G. Theureau et al (2007).

---

29 May 2009 Additions and Revisions

Highlights of New Content and User Interface Upgrades in the June 2009 (N19.6) Release of NED

User Interface

• A new capability is provided to Query Redshift-Independent Distances by Object Name. This service utilizes a new database extension to NED that currently contains 18,150 redshift-independent distances for 5,049 galaxies gathered from the literature by the NED-D project.
• Summary statistics for Redshift-Independent Distances are now included in query reports for objects with the available data. A link is also provided to retrieve the details of the individual distance measurement(s). See for example this By Name query for M 81.
• Query reports for individual objects with available redshifts now include an embedded form to query a volume of space around the object. This new feature leverages NED's computation of the Hubble distance and scale derived from the redshift to search for physical companions. For example, you can search for objects within +/- 750 kpc and +/- 500 km/s around NGC 2798. The search constraints in kpc (arcminutes) and km/s (redshift) can be changed from the default values.
• Object search query reports have been improved to provide:
  • Different types of information organized into cleanly separated tables
  • An Index into the various sections of the query results to make it easier to locate different types of information: ESSENTIAL NOTE, CROSS-IDENTIFICATIONS, COORDINATES, REDSHIFT-INDEPENDENT DISTANCES, FOREGROUND GALACTIC EXTINCTION, BASIC DATA, QUANTITIES DERIVED FROM REDSHIFT, and EXTERNAL ARCHIVES AND SERVICES. Each data section includes a link to jump back to the Index.
  • A preview plot showing the Spectral Energy Distribution (SED) of the source when sufficient photometric data are available
  • Better organization of links to drill down for detailed information: Images, Photometry/SED, Spectra, Redshift-Independent Distances, References, Positions, Redshifts, and Object Notes.
  See for example this By Name query report for NGC 1365.

Database Contents

Data for 83,067 objects linked to 3242 journal articles and catalogs, redshifts for 50,465 objects, 450 thousand object Associations, and 293,772 photometric measurements have been added to NED since the previous public update. Highlights include:
• 56,623 North ecliptic pole objects from 2007ApJS..172..583H
• 53,949 SDSS DR6 galaxies with redshifts
• 10,831 MUSYC sources from 2007AJ....134.1103Q
• 9,329 GEMS objects from 2007ApJS..172..615H
• More than 5,000 COSMOS objects from a special issue of ApJS
• 1,358 GMRT radio sources in the XMM-LSS field from 2007A&A...471.1105T
• Supernovae reported in CBETs up to Jan. 1, 2009
• 450,000 positional Associations between objects in SDSS (DR6) and objects in other surveys
• More than 100,000 identifiers for (mostly) SDSS Galactic stars including HD, BD, HIP, and Bayer/Flamsteed names

Latest review papers in LEVEL 5 Knowledgebase for Extragalactic Astronomy and Cosmology

• A REVIEW OF BONDI-HOYLE-LYTTLETON ACCRETION - R. Edgar (2004)
• DYNAMICAL EVOLUTION OF DISK GALAXIES - J.A. Sellwood (2008)
• FUEL FOR GALAXY DISKS - M.E. Putman et al (2008)
• NONTHERMAL RADIATION MECHANISMS - Vahé Petrosian et al. (2008)
• METAL ENRICHMENT PROCESSES - S. Schindler & A. Diaferio (2008)
• VIOLENCE IN THE HEARTS OF GALAXIES - ABERRATION OR ADOLESCENCE? - C.G. Mundell (2002)
• THERMAL RADIATION PROCESSES - J.S. Kaastra et al. (2008)
• DISTANT RADIO GALAXIES AND THEIR ENVIRONMENTS - G.K. Miley & C. De Breuck (2008)
• CHEMICAL EVOLUTION OF THE MILKY WAY AND ITS SATELLITES - F. Matteucci (2008)

Highlights of Recent Additions to Photometry

• Optical: 56,623 objects in the CFHT ugriz bands from 2007ApJS..172..583H
• Radio: 3,902 sources at 1.4 GHz (VLA) from 2007ApJS..172...46S
• Sub-MM: 231 objects at 850 microns (SCUBA) from 2007MNRAS.380..199I
• X-Ray: 245 objects in the 2-10 keV band (BeppoSAX) from 2007A&A...472..705V

Latest Images in NED

• Spitzer IRAC images from A Spitzer IRAC Census ... I. WLM D.C. Jackson et al (2007).
• Spitzer IRAC images from A Spitzer IRAC Census ... II. IC 1613 D.C. Jackson et al (2007).
• VLA 6 and 2 cm maps from Subarcsecond-Resolution Radio Maps of Nearby Spiral Galaxies C.-W. Tsai et al (2006).
• HST ACS images from The Physical Nature of Rest-UV Galaxy Morphology ... D.R. Law et al (2007).
• VLA intensity and polarization maps from A Study of FRII Radio Galaxies ... A.R.S. Black et al (1992).
• VLA intensity and polarization maps from The Jets in 3C 66B M.J. Hardcastle et al (1996).
• VLA intensity and polarization maps from The Jets in 3C 296 M.J. Hardcastle et al (1997).
• VLA intensity and polarization maps from High-Resolution Observations at 3.6 cm of Seventeen FRII Radio Galaxies with 0.15 < z < 0.30 M.J. Hardcastle et al (1997).
• VLA intensity and polarization maps from A Study of FRII Radio Galaxies ... J.P. Leahy et al (1997).
• VLA intensity and polarization maps from Jets, Plumes, and Hotspots in ... 3C 130 M.J. Hardcastle (1998).

Latest Spectra in NED

• 848 HI spectra from The Homogenized HI data G. Paturel et al (2003).
• 758 HI spectra from Kinematics of the local universe XII. 21-cm line measurements of 586 galaxies ... G. Theureau et al (2005).
• 550 HI spectra from Kinematics of the local universe XIII. 21-cm line measurements of 452 galaxies ... G. Theureau et al (2007).

---

6 December 2008 Additions and Revisions

Highlights of Data and Features Recently Added to NED (December 2008)

Data for 154 million objects from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 6 (SDSS DR6) photometric catalog have been integrated into NED. This release includes new cross-identifications with multiwavelength observations previously cross-correlated by NED from tens of thousands of catalogs and journal articles; these multiwavelength cross-IDs have enabled the incorporation of SDSS DR6 photometry into NED's Spectral Energy Distributions. In the user interface, object queries now include the ability to change the cosmological parameters used to calculate Hubble distances and other Derived Quantities. In addition, magnitudes with filter codes are now included in the object search result tables (e.g., objects within 2 arcminutes of SDSS J140003.70+562055.3), and the Advanced All-Sky (By Parameters) search includes Spitzer IRAC and MIPS, SDSS, and GALEX filters among the photometric constraints. Further details follow.

Database Enhancements:

As our infrastructure and data management processes continue to evolve, NED is scaling up to handle modern sky surveys containing hundreds of millions of objects. The first extremely large dataset to be integrated into NED involves 154 million objects from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 6 (DR6) photometric catalog. These are a subset of the 217 million objects in DR6, which were selected using the following "Clean sample" filters based on recommendations by the SDSS team (see SDSS recommendations for clean samples of objects):

• All objects with SDSS PRIMARY status bit set,
• and SDSS flags set as follows
• BINNED1
• and not BRIGHT
• and (not BLENDED or NODEBLEND)
• and not NOPROFILE
• and not (PEAKCENTER or NOTCHECKED
  or (DEBLEND_NOPEAK and r-band PSF mag err > 0.2))
• and not DEBLENDED_AS_MOVING

We did not filter out objects with the SATURATED flag set, because although SDSS photometry is unreliable for such sources, this would have omitted useful SDSS positions and size measurements for galaxies with bright nuclei, including many nearby Seyfert galaxies. The requirement that Status=PRIMARY excluded objects with Status=FAMILY that were de-blended by the pipeline into smaller components (these CHILD objects themselves have Status=PRIMARY), and also excluded repeated observations with Status=SECONDARY.

SDSS classified each object as either a "galaxy" or "star", depending on whether the pipeline determined it to be resolved (extended) or unresolved (a point source). Along with objects of type "galaxy", objects of type "star" were also folded into NED, because this SDSS classification is strictly morphological and includes many point sources that are actually QSOs and unresolved, compact galaxies. Whenever possible, both types of SDSS objects have been cross-matched to objects in the previous version of NED (which had ~10 million objects total, including ~4 million objects within the SDSS footprint) using our standard position- and data-matching procedures.

The new data in NED include:

• The establishment of multiwavelength cross-identifications with previous observations from tens of thousands of catalogs and journal papers. (Example: multiwavelength cross-IDs with SDSS J074906.51+451033.9) These initial Cross-IDs and Associations between SDSS objects and other objects in NED will be refined in future updates.
• Basic Data, including representative g-band magnitudes, positions, and classifications (Example: SDSS J133840.44+481704.9)
• Position measurements in the r band (Example: SDSS J133936.13+430238.7)
• Size measurements in the r band using 4 methods: Isophotal, Petrosian, de Vaucouleurs, and Exponential (Example: SDSS J133934.97+430351.0)
• Photometric measurements in all 5 bands [ugriz], each with 3 methods (PSF, Model, CModel) for extended objects (Example: SDSS J135554.50+454822.6) and with one method (PSF) for point sources (Example: SDSS J133933.60+430228.5), have been folded into NED's SEDs
• Links to SDSS SkyServer for detailed pipeline processing flags, spectra and images for each object. (Example: SDSS J074906.50+451033.9)

With over 1.7 billion detailed photometric measurements (PSF, Model and CModel magnitudes for galaxies) in five bands, and hundreds of millions of diameter and position measurements, as well as crucial flags from the pipeline processing, folding in SDSS DR6 (the "Clean Sample" subset described above) has expanded NED's tabular database volume by a factor of ~200.

Future work with SDSS:

• While we have carefully checked the resulting database of about 163 million objects, there are certain to be anomalies included. Many SDSS objects, for example, are parts of galaxies covering a major portion of a spiral arm. These may be cross-matched to radio sources or H II regions with relatively large position uncertainties that coincidentally overlap the much smaller position error ellipses of the SDSS objects. Some of the cross-matches made in this initial release of DR6 in NED may be replaced by statistical Associations in future updates.
• The current release includes DR6 objects that have either no counterparts among objects previously in NED, or generally reliable cross-identifications with objects previously in NED based on observations across the EM spectrum. However, hundreds of thousands of SDSS objects have been determined by our cross-comparison software to be possible (candidate) matches with other objects in NED. In addition, there are many cases in which multiple SDSS objects may be associated with single objects observed with lower resolution (e.g., radio, UV, or X-ray surveys). Such 1-to-1 or 1-to-many relationships will be folded in as additional Associations in future updates to NED. Example: 6C radio galaxies associated with SDSS J132435.20+504102.3
• SDSS measurements for large galaxies, including a subset of objects with Status=FAMILY from the standard SDSS pipeline and measurements derived from custom mosaics such as those produced for selected galaxies in the RC3 by David Hogg at NYU, will be folded into NED at a later date.
• SDSS DR7 was released while we were completing the process of integrating DR6 into NED. Due to the extensive effort and complexities involved in handling re-processed data (positions and photometric calibration changed slightly from DR6 to DR7), in addition to all of the other data sets that we have to process, it will take us many months to incorporate final measurements from SDSS-II into NED.
• Please let us know about any peculiarities or omissions, so that future releases of NED can more accurately reflect our knowledge of the extragalactic Universe.

Interface enhancements:

• Since the release of Derived Quantities in 2007, NED has been reporting radial velocities corrected for motions due to major attractors (superclusters) in a local velocity field model (Mould et al. 2000, ApJ, 529, 786), Hubble flow distances, and spatial scales, as well as quantities derived from the redshift corrected to the reference frame defined by the 3K background and further corrected for a concordance cosmological model with H_o = 73 km s^-1 Mpc^-1, Ω_matter = 0.27, and Ω_vacuum = 0.73. Object searches now include the ability to change the cosmological parameters used to calculate Hubble distances and other Derived Quantities, including a short-cut to select high precision parameters from the recent Five-Year WMAP results (i.e., H_o = 70.5 +/- 1.3 km s^-1 Mpc^-1; Hinshaw et al. 2009, ApJS, in press; http://arxiv.org/abs/0803.0732).
• Result tables returned by object searches now include magnitudes and filter codes, where appropriate. Example: objects within 2 arcminutes of SDSS J140003.70+562055.3
• The Advanced All-Sky (By Parameters) search includes Spitzer IRAC and MIPS, SDSS, and GALEX filters among the photometric constraints. Note that this feature currently returns objects with observations in the frequency range corresponding to the selected passband filter. For example, selection of the Spitzer MIPS 24 um filter will also return objects with photometry from the IRAS 25 um filter, because these filters overlap. This approach permits the location of objects with photometry in the selected region of the spectrum, while cutting across multiple surveys, detectors and filters that have been cross-correlated by NED. A future upgrade will include an option to restrict the search to only the selected passband filter.
• Notice: The growing richness of information available in NED presents a need to revamp the organization of the object query reports to make it easier to locate the different types of information and related categories of links to "drill down" for further details. Users with client computer programs and scripts that automate queries to the NED server are encouraged to use the XML/VOTable or simple ASCII table output modes to avoid having to frequently change parsing algorithms, as the HTML version of the query reports will continue to evolve primarily to meet the needs of interactive users. For further details, see NED's Guidelines for Automated Queries.

Latest review papers in LEVEL 5 Knowledgebase for Extragalactic Astronomy and Cosmology

• COSMOLOGICAL SHOCK WAVES - A.M. Bykov et al. (2008)
• EQUILIBRATION PROCESSES IN THE WARM-HOT INTERGALACTIC MEDIUM - A.M. Bykov et al. (2008)
• OBSERVATIONS OF EXTENDED RADIO EMISSION IN CLUSTERS - C. Ferrari et al. (2008)
• NONTHERMAL PHENOMENA IN CLUSTERS OF GALAXIES - Y. Rephaeli et al. (2008)
• SOFT X-RAY AND EXTREME ULTRAVIOLET EXCESS EMISSION FROM CLUSTERS OF GALAXIES - F. Durret et al. (2008)
• FUV AND X-RAY ABSORPTION IN THE WARM-HOT INTERGALACTIC MEDIUM - P. Richter et al. (2008)
• THE GASEOUS ENVIRONMENTS OF RADIO GALAXIES - D.M. Worrall (2002)
• MERGERS OF GALAXIES FROM AN HI PERSPECTIVE - J.E. Hibbard (2000)
• NUCLEAR ACTIVITY IN NEARBY GALAXIES - Luis C. Ho (2008)
• DARK ENERGY AND THE ACCELERATING UNIVERSE - J.A. Frieman et al. (2008)
• MAGNETIZING THE UNIVERSE - K. Subramanian (2008)
• BARRED GALAXIES: AN OBSERVER'S PERSPECTIVE - D.A. Gadotti (2008)
• BOXY/PEANUT AND DISCY BULGES: FORMATION, EVOLUTION AND PROPERTIES - E. Athanassoula (2008)
• THE FORMATION OF DISK GALAXIES IN COMPUTER SIMULATIONS - L. Mayer et al. (2008)
• MAPPING THE COSMOLOGICAL EXPANSION - Eric V. Linder (2008)

---

27 March 2008 Revisions

Data for nearly 300,000 objects linked to 1448 journal articles and catalogs, redshifts for about 215,000 objects, 0.5 million multiwavelength cross-IDs, and nearly 1.7 million photometric measurements have been added to NED since the previous public release. Highlights include:

• 214,687 detailed redshift data frames from 55 published papers and catalogues including
• 2002AJ....123..567S, 2003AJ....126.2579S, 2005AJ....130..367S, and 2007AJ....134..102S, Schneider et al: The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Quasar Catalog, Papers 1-4;
• 2003AJ....125.1817B, Bernardi et al: Early-Type Galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. I. The Sample;
• 1998A&AS..130..323V, Vettolani et al: The ESO Slice Project (ESP) galaxy redshift survey. III. The Sample;
• 2005ApJS..160..149S, Springob et al: A Digital Archive of H I 21 Centimeter Line Spectra of Optically Targeted Galaxies;
• 2004A&A...421..913W, Wolf et al: A catalogue of the Chandra Deep Field South with multi-colour classification and photometric redshifts from COMBO-17;
• 2004ApJS..150....1B, Benitez et al: Faint Galaxies in Deep Advanced Camera for Surveys Observations;
• 2000ApJS..130..237T, Tucker et al: Loose Groups of Galaxies in the Las Campanas Redshift Survey;
• 2003AJ....126.2268W, Wegner et al: Redshift-Distance Survey of Early-Type Galaxies: Spectroscopic Data;
• 2000A&A...355..900D, Drinkwater et al: The Fornax Spectroscopic survey. I; and
• 2001AJ....121...66S, Salzer et al: THE KPNO INTERNATIONAL SPECTROSCOPIC SURVEY. II. H{alpha}-SELECTED SURVEY LIST 1.
• 200,089 NOAO Deep Wide-Field Survey (NDWFS) Bootes objects from 2007ApJS..169...21C, Cool, R.J.: zBootes: z-Band Photometry in the NOAO Deep Wide-Field Survey Bootes Field
• 36,121 GALEX UltraViolet objects from 2007ApJ...664...53A, Atlee, D. W. and Gould, A.: Photometric Selection of QSO Candidates from GALEX Sources
• 13,825 MaxBCG clusters and Brightest Cluster Galaxies in the SDSS from 2007ApJ...660..239K, Koester et al: A MaxBCG Catalog of 13,823 Galaxy Clusters from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• 4,667 galaxies in the direction of Abell 3526 2007ApJS..170...95C, Chiboucas, K. and Mateo, M.: The Luminosity Function of Nearby Galaxy Clusters. I
• 2,478 VERA radio sources from 2007AJ....133.2487P, Petrov et al: VERA 22 GHz Fringe Search Survey
• 625 SDSS-C4 galaxy clusters from 2007MNRAS.379..867V, Von der Linden et al: How special are brightest group and cluster galaxies?
• 143 galaxies in Abell 0773 from 2007A&A...467...37B, Barrena et al: Internal dynamics of the radio halo cluster Abell 773: a multiwavelength analysis

Latest review papers LEVEL 5 Knowledgebase for Extragalactic Astronomy and Cosmology:

• POPULATIONS OF X-RAY SOURCES IN GALAXIES - G. Fabbiano (2006)
• OPTICAL PROPERTIES OF DUST - Aigen Li (2007)
• DUST IN ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI - Aigen Li (2007)
• MOLECULES IN GALAXIES - Alain Omont (2007)
• PRIMORDIAL NUCLEOSYNTHESIS: SUCCESSES AND CHALLENGES - G. Steigman (2006)
• THEORETICAL OVERVIEW OF COSMIC MICROWAVE BACKGROUND ANISOTROPY - Edward L. Wright (2004)

Highlights of recent additions to photometry:

• Radio: 730 objects from 2007AJ....133.2569G in the Arecibo 1.4 GHz band.
• Sub-mm: 36 objects from 2007ApJ...660.1198Y in the CSO 350 micron band.
• NIR: 62 objects from 2007ApJ...660..167D in the Spitzer 24 micron band.
• Far-infrared: 87 objects from 2004ApJ...605..156G in the MIRLIN 10.8 micron band.
• Optical: 35592 objects from 2007ApJ...664...53A in the USNO BR bands.
• UV: 130 objects from 2007ApJ...666..757S in the CIV 1549 A band.
• XRay: 420 objects from 2007ApJS..170..175B in the INTEGRAL 20-40 and 40-100 keV bands.

Recent additions to NED's image database

• 222 K-band images from 2005MNRAS.360..587B, Balogh et al: Near-infrared imaging of 222 nearby H-delta-strong galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey,
• RGB images for 506 galaxies from 2004PASP..116..133L, Lupton et al: Preparing Red-Green-Blue Images from CCD Data
• UV images for 27 galaxies from 2007ApJ...659..162T, Taylor-Mager et al: Dependence of Galaxy Structure on Rest-Frame Wavelength and Galaxy Type
• Spitzer IRAC and MIPS, and ground-based BVRI and H-alpha images for the 75 galaxies in the SINGS sample described in 2003PASP..115..928K, Kennicutt et al: SINGS: The SIRTF Nearby Galaxies Survey

Recent additions to NED's database of spectra

• 2112 HI spectra for galaxies from 1998A&AS..130..333T, Theureau et al: Kinematics of the local universe. VII. New 21-cm line measurements of 2112 galaxies
• Spitzer IRS and ground-based optical spectra for the 75 galaxies in the SINGS sample described in 2003PASP..115..928K, Kennicutt et al: SINGS: The SIRTF Nearby Galaxies Survey

---

24 October 2007 Revisions

Data for nearly 200,000 objects linked to 790 journal articles and catalogs, redshifts for about 12,000 objects, 0.5 million multiwavelength cross-IDs, and nearly 3.4 million photometric measurements have been added to NED since the previous public release. Highlights include:

• 3,251,889 detailed photometry data frames (Petrosian magnitudes) for over 659,000 SDSS DR5 objects from the spectroscopically-observed samples described in 2002AJ....124.1810S, Strauss et al: Spectroscopic Target Selection in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: The Main Galaxy Sample, 2002AJ....123.2945R, Richards et al: Spectroscopic Target Selection in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: The Quasar Sample, and 2001AJ....122.2267E, Eisenstein et al: Spectroscopic Target Selection in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: The Luminous Red Galaxy Sample.
• 2,597,657 detailed r-band diameter data points for the 659,000+ SDSS DR5 objects as noted above.
• 157,612 near-IR FLAMEX galaxies from 2006ApJ...639..816E, Elston et al: The FLAMINGOS Extragalactic Survey
• 18,009 galaxies from the 2MASS Flat Galaxy Catalog in 2004BSAO...57....5M, Mitronova et al: The 2MASS-selected Flat Galaxy Catalog
• 12,555 JVAS/CLASS radio sources from 2007MNRAS.376..371J, Jackson et al: A survey of polarization in the JVAS/CLASS flat-spectrum radio source surveys - I. The data and catalogue production
• 5,884 SDSS QSOs with z > 3 from 2007AJ....133.2222S, Shen et al: Clustering of High-Redshift (z >= 2.9) Quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• 3,944 Spitzer extragalactic First Look Survey GMRT radios sources from 2007MNRAS.376.1251G, Garn et al: Deep 610-MHz Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope observations of the Spitzer extragalactic First Look Survey field - I. Observations, data analysis and source catalogue
• 1,119 VLBA Imaging and Polarimetry Survey (VIPS) sources from 2007ApJ...658..203H, Helmboldt et al: The VLBA Imaging and Polarimetry Survey at 5 GHz

Latest review papers LEVEL 5 Knowledgebase for Extragalactic Astronomy and Cosmology:

• THE INNER PROPERTIES OF LATE-TYPE GALAXIES - C.M. Carollo (2004)
• A FAINT NEW MILKY WAY SATELLITE IN BOÖTES - V. Belokurov et al. (2006)
• STELLAR POPULATIONS IN THE LOCAL GROUP OF GALAXIES - Eva K. Grebel (2005)
• NEAR-FIELD COSMOLOGY WITH LOCAL GROUP DWARF SPHEROIDALS - Eva K. Grebel (2005)
• BRIGHTEST CLUSTER MEMBERS - James M. Schombert (1990)

Highlights of recent additions to photometry, SEDs, and spectral line fluxes:

• Radio: 3944 objects from 2007MNRAS.376.1251G in the GMRT 1610 MHz band.
• Sub-mm: 83 objects from 2007MNRAS.376.1073Z in the SCUBA 450, 850 micron bands.
• NIR: 1030 objects from 2007A&A...462..507L in the IRAS 12, 25, 60, 100 micron bands.
• Far-infrared: 263 objects from 2004A&A...413..843K in the ISOPHOT 90, 170 micron bands.
• Optical: 1599 objects from 2004A&A...428.1043L in the VLT I band.
• UV: 5418 objects from 2007AJ....133.1780T in the GALEX FUV, NUV bands.
• XRay: 174 objects from 2007ApJ...657..116K in the Chandra 2-10 keV band.

Recent additions to NED's image database

• Optical and HI images for Arp 244 (NGC 4038/39) from 2001AJ....122.2969H, Hibbard et al: High-Resolution H I Mapping of NGC 4038/39 ("The Antennae") and Its Tidal Dwarf Galaxy Candidates
• BVRI and K_s images for 19 galaxies from 2006ApJS..163..270G, Gadotti and de Souza: On the Lengths, Colors, and Ages of 18 Face-on Bars.

Recent additions to NED's database of spectra

• 8848 HI spectra for UGC and AGC galaxies from 2005ApJS..160..149S, Springob et al: A Digital Archive of HI 21 Centimeter Line Spectra of Optically Targeted Galaxies.
• 87 Optical spectra for 87 low-redshift QSOs from 1992ApJS...80..109B, Boroson and Green: The emission-line properties of low-redshift quasi-stellar objects.

---

26 June 2007 Revisions

Data for nearly 65,000 objects linked to over 840 journal articles and catalogs, redshifts for about 50,000 objects, 89,000 multiwavelength cross-IDs, and nearly 10 million photometric measurements have been added to NED since the previous public release. Highlights include:

• 9,755,643 detailed photometry data frames (PSF, Model, and CModel magnitudes) for over 659,000 SDSS DR5 objects from the spectroscopically-observed samples described in 2002AJ....124.1810S, Strauss et al: Spectroscopic Target Selection in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: The Main Galaxy Sample, 2002AJ....123.2945R, Richards et al: Spectroscopic Target Selection in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: The Quasar Sample, and 2001AJ....122.2267E, Eisenstein et al: Spectroscopic Target Selection in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: The Luminous Red Galaxy Sample. The Petrosian magnitudes for these objects will be available in NED's September 2007 release.
• 18,296 near-IR galaxies from 2006A&A...449..951G, Grazian et al: The GOODS-MUSIC sample: a multicolour catalog of near-IR selected galaxies in the GOODS-South field
• 14,978 luminous red galaxies and QSOs from 2006MNRAS.372..425C, Cannon et al: The 2dF-SDSS LRG and QSO (2SLAQ) Luminous Red Galaxy Survey
• 4,492 HII regions in 24 galaxies (of 56) from 2006A&A...459L..13B, Bradley et al: A composite H II region luminosity function in H of unprecedented statistical weight
• 2,198 groups of galaxies from 2002MNRAS.335..216M, Merchan and Zandivarez: Galaxy groups in the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey: the Catalogue
• 810 1.4GHz sources from 2006ApJS..167..103F, Fomalont et al: The Radio/Optical Catalog of the SSA 13 Field
• 578 high-z, i-band dropout objects from 2006ApJ...653...53B, Bouwens et al: Galaxies at z ~ 6: The UV Luminosity Function and Luminosity Density from 506 HUDF, HUDF Parallel ACS Field, and GOODS i-Dropouts.
• NED is now using the latest version (4.0) of the Aladin Sky Atlas tool from CDS.

Latest review papers LEVEL 5 Knowledgebase for Extragalactic Astronomy and Cosmology:

• THE EXTRAGALACTIC GAMMA RAY BACKGROUND - Charles D. Dermer (2007)
• SKY SURVEYS AND DEEP FIELDS OF GROUND-BASED AND SPACE TELESCOPES - V.P. Reshetnikov (2005)
• INTERACTION OF GALAXIES WITH THE ICM - J.H. van Gorkom (2003)
• INTERACTIONS AND MERGERS OF CLUSTER GALAXIES - J. Christopher Mihos (2003)
• X-RAY SURVEYS OF LOW-REDSHIFT CLUSTERS - Alastair C. Edge (2003)
• OBSERVATIONS OF THE HIGH REDSHIFT UNIVERSE - Richard S. Ellis (2007)

Highlights of recent additions to photometry, SEDs, and spectral line fluxes:

• Radio: 878 objects from 2006ApJS..167..103F in the VLA 1.4 GHz band.
• Sub-mm: 223 objects from 2006MNRAS.370.1057S in the SCUBA 850 micron band.
• NIR: 17029 objects from 2006AJ....131.2859F in the Spitzer 24 micron band.
• Far-infrared: 249 objects from 2006ApJS..166..470R in the Spizter 70 and 160 micron bands.
• Optical: 23188 objects from 2004A&A...422..407G in the CFHT BVR bands.
• UV: 88 objects from 2006ApJS..166..470R in the GALEX FUV, NUV bands.
• XRay: 1190 objects from 2005ApJS..161..185U in the ASCA 0.7-10 band

Recent additions to NED's image database

• 279 optical and near-IR images for SINGS galaxies from 2003PASP..115..928K, Kennicutt et al: SINGS: The SIRTF Nearby Galaxies Survey
• Two CO (J=1-0) line images for M31 from 2006A&A...453..459N, Nieten et al: Molecular gas in the Andromeda galaxy.

Interface enhancements:

• By popular demand, to the right of the SED plot, the photometry/SED query results page (HTML mode only) provides a new option to Format tabular data as: Text (ASCII) Table Bar-Separated Values, Text (ASCII) Table Tab-Separated Values, or XML/VOTable. Simply make your selection and then click [Change Table Format]. For example, view the SED for 3C 269.
• The XML/VOTable output from NED query services have been updated to comply with votlint, a Java tool that validates VOTable documents. As of June 2007, NED's VOTables use XML version 1.0 and VOTable version 1.1.

---

3 April 2007 Revisions

Data for more than 350,000 objects linked to over 750 journal articles and catalogs, redshifts for over 48,000 objects, 274,000 multiwavelength cross-IDs, and 322,000 photometric measurements have been added to NED since the previous public release. Highlights include:

• 132,612 extragalactic objects from 2006A&A...451..881B, Berta et al: The ESO-Spitzer Imaging extragalactic Survey (ESIS). I. WFI B, V, R deep observations of ELAIS-S1 and comparison to Spitzer and GALEX data
• 100,563 UV-excess QSO candidates from 2004ApJS..155..257R, Richards et al: Efficient Photometric Selection of Quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: 100,000 z < 3 Quasars from DR1
• 91,847 candidate AGNs and normal galaxies in SDSS DR2 from 2005AJ....130.2439S, Suchov et al: A Census of Object Types and Redshift Estimates in the SDSS Photometric Catalog from a Trained Decision Tree Classifier
• Detailed redshift and photometry data frames for 47,768 2QZ objects from 2005MNRAS.359...57S, Smith et al., The 2dF QSO Redshift Survey - III. The input catalogue and 2004MNRAS.349.1397C, Croom et al., The 2dF QSO Redshift Survey - XII. The spectroscopic catalogue and luminosity function.
• 17,058 24-micron sources from 2006AJ....131.2859F, Fadda et al: The Spitzer Space Telescope Extragalactic First Look Survey: 24-micron Data Reduction, Catalog, and Source Identification
• 5,632 objects with BR photometry in the Hubble Deep Field South from 2006AJ....131.2383G, Glazebrook et al: Anglo-Australian Telescope Imaging and Microslit Spectroscopy in the Southern Hubble Deep Field
• 1,545 HII regions, planetary nebulae, and Wolf-Rayet stars in M31 from 1983ApJ...273..544M, Moffat and Shara: Wolf-Rayet stars in the Local Group galaxies M 31 and NGC 6822, 1987ApJ...320..266M, Moffat and Shara: Wolf-Rayet stars in the Andromeda galaxy, and 1993A&AS..102..251M, Meyssonnier et al: An objective-prism survey of emission-line objects in M31.
• 979 24-micron sources in the GOODS EN1 field from 2006MNRAS.371.1891R, Rodighiero et al: Counting individual galaxies from deep 24-micron Spitzer surveys
• 735 low surface brightness galaxies in the B and R bands from 2006A&A...459..679A, Adami et al: A deep, wide survey of faint, low-surface-brightness galaxies in the direction of the Coma cluster of galaxies.

Latest review papers LEVEL 5 Knowledgebase for Extragalactic Astronomy and Cosmology:

• ATOMIC DATA FOR X-RAY ASTROPHYSICS - T.R. Kallman and P. Palmeri (2007)
• X-RAY ABSORPTION IN ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI - Roberto Maiolino & Guido Risaliti (2007)
• THEORY OF WINDS IN AGNs - Daniel Proga (2007)
• ULTRALUMINOUS INFRARED GALAXIES - C.J. Lonsdale et al. (2006)
• AGB STARS AND THE CHEMICAL EVOLUTION OF GALAXIES - Monica Tosi (2007)

Highlights of recent additions to photometry, SEDs, and spectral line fluxes:

• Radio: 6182 objects from 1990ApJS...72..621L in the NRAO 4830 MHz band.
• Sub-mm: 19 objects from 2001MNRAS.327..697D in the SCUBA 450 micron band.
• NIR: 111 objects from 2006MNRAS.368..534N in the SIRIUS K_s band.
• Mid-infrared: 7156 objects from 2006AJ....132..231P in the MIPS 24 micron band.
• Optical: 13113 objects from 2006ApJ...643..680P in the LCO R band.
• UV: 134 objects from 2006AJ....132..853T in the HST 1600 A band.
• XRay: 826 objects from 2006ApJS..163..424K in the Chandra 0.3-8 keV band
• Gamma: 4 objects from 2006ApJ...644..148P in the Whipple 400 GeV band.

Recent additions to NED's image database

HST images for 60 Seyfert galaxies from 2003ApJS..148..327S, Schmitt et al., A Hubble Space Telescope Survey of Extended [O III] λ5007 Emission in a Far-Infrared Selected Sample of Seyfert Galaxies: Observations

Recent additions to NED's database of spectra

Over 40,000 optical spectra for objects from 2004MNRAS.349.1397C, Croom et al., The 2dF QSO Redshift Survey - XII. The spectroscopic catalogue and luminosity function.

---

19 December 2006 Revisions

A overview of NED's latest content and capabilities, prepared as a handout for the January 2007 AAS meeting in Seattle, can be downloaded here (4 MB PDF file).

New NED Features:

• Data for objects with available redshifts contain the following Derived Values: Corrected Velocities (Galactocentric GSR, Local Group, 3K CMB, Virgo Infall, Local Infall), Hubble Flow Distances and Scales (e.g., kpc/arcsec), and Cosmological Quantities including Luminosity Distance, Angular-Size Distance, Co-Moving Radial Distance, Scale, Ages, and Surface Brightness Dimming. A detailed explanation of the computations is available here, and example output can be viewed from this query on the redshift-5 object SDSS J073103.13+445949.5.

• Literature Data Content and Topical Keywords: Over the years, NED users have asked for a way to filter the rapidly growing literature based on data content and specific extragalactic topics. NED contains substantial information about the data content of journal articles. Thus, using semi-automated methods, this information is being used to assign keywords in these categories: Classifications, Diameters, Components, Images, Photometry, Kinematics, Object Notes, Positions, and Spectroscopy (redshift). This information often cannot be extracted from titles and abstracts alone, but requires knowledge of the content of tables, figures, etc. The computer science literature contains debates on the merits of free-text searching versus use of a "controlled vocabulary" (keywords) assigned by analysis of a knowledge domain. The latter often results in more precise results due to normalization of terms. Examples: "starburst" = "H II" (context: nuclear spectrum); "ultraviolet" = "UV". NED is now assigning and displaying Data Content Keywords (for all papers) using information in NED and Topical Keywords using information kindly provided by the ARI Bibliographical Database for Astronomical References (ARIBIB) for publications prior to mid-2000. Both keyword sets are displayed in the output and utilized in new (optional) filters for literature searches based on Object Names or Author Names.

• A new Spectral Database service provides:
  1. A unique repository for spectra previously published only via rendered plots in journal articles, as well as support for spectra from large survey archives.
  2. Preview plots.
  3. Preservation of the original data format provided by authors and archive curators.
  4. Standardized (MKS) units and a uniform VO-compatible data format.
  5. ASCII and VOTable download options.
  6. A query service to locate spectra by object name, journal article (refcode), passband, line filters, and combinations thereof.
  7. Quick-look visualization and analysis capability.
  8. Interoperability with VO.

  VOTable is used to standardize the data structure and physical units of spectra provided in various FITS and ASCII formats. This also facilitates comparison, fusion and analysis of spectra via VO-compatible applets such as Specview. We thank Ivo Busko of STScI for making the Specview Java applet available and for kindly supporting recent revisions to accomodate the diverse spectra becoming available in NED. You may search the spectral database here. We also thank the journal article authors and archive curators who have contributed spectra to NED. If you would like to submit spectra to NED (in plain ASCII, FITS, or VOTable XML), please contact us.

Data for 120,000 objects linked to over 530 journal articles and catalogs, redshifts for over 100,000 objects, 146,000 multiwavelength cross-IDs, and 41,000 photometric measurements have been added to NED since the previous public release. Highlights include:

• Detailed redshift and position data frames for 659,500 SDSS galaxies and QSOs from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.
• 18,700 galaxies in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field 2006AJ....132..926C Coe et al., Galaxies in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. I.
• 7,000 from the MMT Hectospec Redshift Survey in 2006AJ....132..231P Papovich et al., An MMT Hectospec Redshift Survey of 24-micron Sources in the Spitzer First Look Survey.
• 880 galaxies and groups from a survey of strong gravitational lenses in 2006ApJ...646...85W Williams et al., First Results from a Photometric Survey of Strong Gravitational Lens Environments.
• 750 galaxy clusters derived from the SDSS DR4 in 2005AJ....130..968M Miller et al., The C4 Clustering Algorithm: Clusters of Galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.
• 600 galaxy clusters from the Faint Sky Variability Survey in 2006MNRAS.369.1334S Söchting et al., The FSVS Cluster Catalogue: galaxy clusters and groups in the Faint Sky Variability Survey.
• 322 HII regions and planetary nebulae in M33 from
  • 2005A&A...444..831B Bedin et al., Star cluster detection with WFC/ACS in M 33. 33 new clusters and 51 candidates;
  • 2003A&A...400..511M Magrini et al., Spectroscopy of planetary nebulae in M 33;
  • 2000A&A...355..713M Magrini et al., A search for planetary nebulae in M33;
  • 1987A&AS...68..171B Buczilowski et al., A multifrequency radio continuum survey of M33. I.;
  • 1981ApJ...246L..61L Long et al., Observations of the X-ray sources in the nearby Sc galaxy M33; and
  • 1978A&A....62...51V von Kap-Herr et al., M33 - Radiocontinuum emission at 4850 MHz.

Latest review papers LEVEL 5 Knowledgebase for Extragalactic Astronomy and Cosmology

• M/L IN INDIVIDUAL GALAXIES - Eric Emsellem (2006)
• FIRST LIGHT - Abraham Loeb (2006)
• UNDERSTANDING GALAXY FORMATION AND EVOLUTION - Vladimir Avila-Reese (2006)
• GAMMA-RAY BURSTS - P. Mészáros (2006)

Highlights of recent additions to photometry, SEDs and spectral line fluxes:

• H I spectral line fluxes: 10 objects from 2006AJ....131.2056W in H I (21 cm).
• Radio: 1079 objects from 1998MNRAS.296..839H in the ATCA 1.4 GHz band.
• Sub-mm spectral line fluxes: 7 objects from 2006ApJ...640..228T in CO (3-2), CO (7-6), CO (4-3) and CO (6-5).
• Mid-Infrared: 53 objects from 2006ApJ...639..157W in the Spitzer IRAC 8 microns band and IRS 16 and 22 microns bands.
• NIR: 127 objects from 2006MNRAS.365..439C in the UKIRT JHK bands.
• Optical: 6427 objects from 2006MNRAS.366..645P in the LCO R and B bands.
• UV/Optical spectral line fluxes: 65 objects from 2006MNRAS.366..480G in [O II] 3727, H{delta} 4101, H{gamma} 4340, He II 4686, H{beta} 4861, [O III] 5007.
• XRay: 441 objects from 2006ApJS..162..304H in the ROSAT 0.5-2 keV.
• Gamma: 47 objects from 2006ApJ...636..765B in the INTEGRAL 20-40 keV and 40-100 keV bands.

Recent additions to NED's image database

• 391 images for nearby galaxies from 2003ApJS..149..327G Grauer et al., Infrared Observations of Galaxies in the Local Universe. II. 391 Calibrated Images with Photometric and Structural Measurements.

---

29 September 2006 Revisions

• 103,202 galaxies and 13,362 QSOs from 2006SDSS5.C...0000: SDSS DR5 Galaxies and QSOs with redshifts.
• 15,343 SDSS QSOs from 2006AJ....131.2766R Richards et al., SDSS Quasar Luminosity Function from DR3.
• 13,111 visually-selected objects in the field around PKS 0405-123 from 2006ApJ...643..680P Prochaska et al., Probing the Intergalactic Medium-Galaxy Connection toward PKS 0405-123: The Galaxy Survey.
• 9,928 radio sources from 1974A&AS...18..147F (and references therein), Colla, Fanti, et al., The Second Bologna Catalogue of Radio Sources at 408 MHz.
• 4,784 SDSS BAL QSOs from 2006ApJS..165....1T Trump et al., A Catalog of Broad Absorption Line Quasars from SDSS DR3.
• 4,748 Chandra sources in the NOAO Deep Wide-Field Survey field from 2006ApJ...641..140B Brand et al., Optical and Near-Infrared Counterparts in the Chandra XBootes Survey
• 4,315 HIPASS HI radio sources from 2005MNRAS.361...34D Doyle et al., The HIPASS Catalogue: Optical counterparts and isolated dark galaxies.
• NED is now using the latest version (3.704) of Aladin Sky Atlas tool from CDS.

Latest review papers LEVEL 5 Knowledgebase for Extragalactic Astronomy and Cosmology

• DARK MATTER AND BACKGROUND LIGHT - J.M. Overduin & P.S. Wesson (2004)
• ADVANCED TOPICS IN COSMOLOGY: A PEDAGOGICAL INTRODUCTION - T. Padmanabhan (2006)
Highlights of recent additions to photometry:
• XRay: 250 objects from 2005MNRAS.362.1371L
• Optical: 40975 objects from 2005A&A...444..365W
• NIR: 1778 objects from 2005MNRAS.358..333G
• SUBMM: 83 objects from 2005MNRAS.364.1253V
• Radio: 4312 sources from 2005MNRAS.361...34D
• Radio: 9,928 sources from 1974A&AS...18..147F and references therein.

Recent additions to NED's image database

• 2820 images for 1034 nearby galaxies from GALEX FUV and NUV bands, soon to be published by Gil de Paz et al. in ApJS.

---

31 July 2006 Revisions

• Now in LEVEL5: NED-1D: NASA/IPAC EXTRAGALACTIC DATABASE of DISTANCES, version 1.1 for 1,073 galaxies with velocities less than 1/8 c, published between 1990 and 2006.
• X/Y Offset to RA/Dec Converter. Rectangular coordinates referred to a known equatorial position may now be converted to equatorial coordinates using NED's new offset converter tool.
• A list of over 4200 catalogs and papers currently included in NED, with reference codes and FTP links to the original data sources. Almost all of the acronyms used in NED are listed here in alphabetical order.
• 6,426 galaxies around 11 clusters from 2006MNRAS.366..645P Pimbblet et al., the Las Campanas/Anglo-Australian Telescope Rich Cluster Survey.
• 3,649 optical IDs of ROSAT-IRAS FSC sources from 2006A&A...449..425M Mickaelian et al.
• 1,858 FIRES sources around MS 1054.4-0321 from 2006AJ....131.1891F Forster Schreiber et al, the Faint Infrared Extragalactic Survey.
• 1,002 HIPASS sources from the northern extension of the 2004MNRAS.350.1195M Meyer et al., HI Parkes All-Sky Survey, along with revised redshifts for all 5,317 HIPASS sources.
• 759 xFLS objects from 2006AJ....131..250F Frayer et al., Spitzer 70 and 160 micron Observations of the Extragalactic First Look Survey.

Latest review papers LEVEL 5 Knowledgebase for Extragalactic Astronomy and Cosmology

• PHYSICS OF COSMIC REIONIZATION - T. Roy Choudhury and A. Ferrara (2006)
• THE GALEX ULTRAVIOLET ATLAS OF NEARBY GALAXIES - Armando Gil de Paz et al. (2006)
Highlights of recent additions to photometry:
• X-Ray: 950 objects from 2003AJ....126..539A in the 0.5-8 keV range
• FUV: 25 objects from 2005ApJ...632..227R in the GALEX FUV band
• Optical: 66432 objects from 2005ApJ...630..759M in the R band
• NIR: 259 objects from 2005ApJ...630..206F in the J band.
• FIR: 49 objects from 2005AJ....130.2019O at 90 microns
• Sub-MM: 894 objects from 2006AJ....131..250F at 160 microns
• MM: 40 objects from 2005ApJ...632L..13L at 1.2 mm
• Radio: 250 objects from 2005AJ....130.2473K at 15 GHz

Recent additions to NED's image database

• 644 images for 142 late-type, irregular, and peculiar galaxies from Taylor et al. (2005ApJ...630..784T) in UBVR at the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope (VATT) and in the mid-UV and near-IR with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST).
• B, R, and H{alpha} images for NGC 1275 from Conselice et al. (2001AJ....122.2281C) with the WIYN 3.5 m telescope.
• 70 J and K_s_ images from Vaduvescu et al. (2005AJ....130.1593V) for 34 dwarf irregular galaxies (dIs) in the Local Volume with the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope and at the Observatorio Astronomico Nacional.
• 32 J and K_s_ images from Vaduvescu et al. (2006AJ....131.1318V) for 16 BCDs in the Virgo Cluster with the 2.1 m telescope at the Observatorio Astronomico Nacional.
• 372 R and H{alpha} images from Meurer et al. (2006ApJS..165..307M) for 93 more galaxies from the Survey for Ionization in Neutral Gas Galaxies (SINGG).
• 41 B, R, J, K_s_ images from Galaz et al. (2006AJ....131.2035G) for a selected sample of high and low surface brightness spiral galaxies.
• 416 SIRTF (IRAC and MIPS), and KPNO/CTIO BVRI and H{alpha} images from Kennicutt et al. (2003PASP..115..928K) from SINGS: The SIRTF Nearby Galaxies Survey.
• UBRI images for Mrk 348 from Anton et al (2002MNRAS.336..319A).
• BVRJHK images for NGC 1097 from Quillen et al (1995AJ....110..156Q).
• UBVI images for NGC 300 from Kim et al (2004ChJAA...4..299K).
• J, K, and CO (J = 1-0) images for NGC 1530 from Regan et al (1995ApJ...449..576R) with the Berkeley-Illinois-Maryland Array and from KPNO.
• Deep H{alpha} images for HII regions in NGC 628 from Lelievre and Roy (2000AJ....120.1306L).
• K-band images from Rauscher (1995AJ....109.1608R) for the nuclear regions of 15 Virgo Cluster spirals.
• JHK images for M33 from Regan and Vogel (1994ApJ...434..536R).
• H- and K-band images from McLeod and Rieke (1995ApJ...441...96M) for 43 Seyfert galaxies.
• 13 intermediate-band optical images of M81 from Kong et al (2000AJ....119.2745K).
• HI VLA maps of M81 from Adler and Westpfahl (1996AJ....111..735A).
• HI VLA maps of NGC 925 and NGC 1744 from Pisano et al (1998AJ....115..975P).
• 5 GHz VSOP images from Lister et al (2001ApJ...554..948L) for 26 Pearson-Readhead active galactic nuclei.
• IRAC images for M81 from Willner et al (2004ApJS..154..222W).
• H{alpha} images from Evans et al (1996ApJS..105...93E) for 17 nearby Seyfert galaxies.
• BVRI, H{alpha}, and 21-cm images for NGC 1530 from Regan et al (1996AJ....112.2549R).
• 85 HST F255W, F300W, and F814W images from Windhorst et al (2002ApJS..143..113W) for 37 nearby galaxies.

---

6 April 2006 Revisions

Data for 166,000 objects linked to over 700 journal articles and catalogs, redshifts for 12,000 objects, 600,000 multiwavelength cross-IDs, and 500,000 photometric measurements have been added to NED since the previous public release. Highlights include:

• 115,417 objects in the Spitzer Space Telescope First-Look Survey (FLS) and 5239 objects in the ELAIS-N1 fields from Spitzer IRAC images with detailed photometry at 3.6, 4.5, 5.8, and 8.0 microns, and positions from Lacy et al. (2005ApJS..161...41L).
• 7,769 galaxies with redshifts from Davis et al.,the DEEP2 survey.
• ~5,000 Chandra X-Ray sources from the CXOONC (Chandra Orion Ultradeep Project, Getman et al.), and CXOXB (XBootes: An X-Ray Survey of the NDWFS Bootes Field, Kenter et al.) surveys.

• 3,380 galaxies from Way et al. (2005AJ....130.2012W), the Southern Abell Redshift Survey.
• 1,633 Lyman-break objects from Hildebrandt et al. (2005A&A...441..905H), GaBoDS: The Garching-Bonn Deep Survey.
• 427 emission-line galaxies from Bongiovanni et al. (2005MNRAS.359..930B), CUYS: The CIDA-UCM-YALE Survey.

Latest review papers in LEVEL 5 Knowledgebase for Extragalactic Astronomy and Cosmology

• NON-BARYONIC DARK MATTER -- Paolo Gondolo (2004)
• HOT GAS IN AND AROUND ELLIPTICAL GALAXIES -- William G. Mathews & Fabrizio Brighenti (2003)
• COSMOLOGY WITH THE SUNYAEV-ZEL'DOVICH EFFECT -- John E. Carlstrom et al. (2002)
• THE COSMIC MICROWAVE BACKGROUND RADIATION -- Eric Gawiser and Joseph Silk (2000)
• TYPE Ia SUPERNOVAE -- Bruno Leibundgut (2000)
• GALAXY FORMATION -- Eric Gawiser (2005)

Highlights of recent additions to photometry:

• X-Ray: 143 objects from 2005A&A...435..799T in the 0.1-2 keV and 0.5-2 keV range.
• FUV: 5 objects from 2005AJ....130.1022A in the GALEX NUV and FUV bands.
• Optical: 7479 objects from 2005ApJS..159...41V in the HST V and I bands.
• NIR: 17 objects from 2005ApJ...622L.105H at 24 microns.
• FIR: 46 objects from 2005ApJ...629...88S at 70 microns.
• Sub-MM: 195 objects from 2001A&A...372..364D at 170 microns.
• MM: 79 objects from 1998AJ....116....8L at 13 mm.
• Radio: 2148 objects from 2003AJ....125..465H at 1.4 GHz.

Recent additions to NED's image database:

• The latest version of Aladin (Version 3.6, January 2006) is configured for viewing images.
• B-band 2.5-m Isaac Newton Telescope images for 11088 galaxies from Liske, et al (2003MNRAS.344..307L), the Millennium Galaxy Catalogue.
• V (F555W) and I (F814W) HST/WFPC2 images for 29 galaxies from Holwerda, et al. (2005AJ....129.1396H) Opacity of Spiral Galaxy Disks. IV.
• Mid-UV (F255W and F300W) and I-band (F814W) HST/WFPC2 images for 37 galaxies from Windhorst, et al. (2002ApJS..143..113W), the Hubble Space Telescope Survey of the Mid-Ultraviolet Morphology of Nearby Galaxies.
• 17 more SINGS: Spitzer Infrared Nearby Galaxies Survey images have been loaded.

---

19 December 2005 Revisions

• Forms to query objects, data, and references contain new options in the Output Format Specifications that provide machine-readable tabular output in XML VOTable format or as plain text (ASCII) with bar-separated or tab-separated values. VOTable format simplifies interoperability with other Virtual Observatory tools and services; bar-separated and tab-separated ASCII tables can be easily imported into spreadsheets and plotting packages.
• 904,017 objects in the Spitzer Space Telescope First-Look Survey (FLS) and 273,541 objects in the ELAIS-N1 fields from KPNO images with detailed R-band photometry and positions from Fadda et al. (2004AJ....128....1F)
• ~10,000 Northern Sky Cluster Survey (NSCS) clusters from Lopes et al. (2004AJ....128.1017L)
• ~5,400 IC objects from Dreyer's IC1 and IC2.

• ~2,000 Palomar Compact Groups (PCG) galaxies and groups from de Carvalho et al. (2005AJ....130..425D)

Highlights of recent additions to photometry:

• Gamma-Ray: 1 object from 2005ApJ...621..181D in the 0.383-19.1 TeV range.
• X-Ray: 1911 objects from 2003ApJ...596..944H in the 0.5-10 keV range.
• Optical: 2969 objects from 2005AJ....129.2062A in the SDSS g-band.
• NIR: 968 objects from 2004AJ....127..646F in the J, K bands.
• FIR: 1942 objects from 2004A&A...422...39S at 170 microns.
• Sub-MM: 14 objects from 2005MNRAS.357..361S at 850 and 450 microns.
• MM: 10 objects from 1994MNRAS.267L...9M at 1.25 mm.
• Radio: 1103 objects from 2003A&A...403..857B at 1.4 GHz.

---

18 October 2005 Revisions

• 104,586 galaxies and 12,879 QSOs from SDSS DR4, all with redshifts.

• ~ 2400 objects in the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field from Thompson et al. (2005AJ....130....1T), and from Pirzkal et al. (2005ApJ...622..319P).

• ~ 1800 objects with ELAIS 7- and 15-micron observations from Vaccari et al. (2005MNRAS.358..397V).

• ~ 300 objects with VLT/FORS2 spectroscopy in the GOODS-South Field from Vanzella et al. (2005A&A...434...53V).

Latest images available in NED's image database

• UBVRI FITS images for the Chandra Deep Field South, linked through all 63,501 COMBO-17 objects listed in Wolf et al. (2004A&A...421..913W).

• 439 15-GHz linear polarization images and maps from MOJAVE (Monitoring of Jets in Active Galactic Nuclei with VLBA Experiments) in Lister and Homan (2005AJ....130.1389L).

---

9 August 2005 Revisions

• 198,213 QUEST (QUasar Equatorial Survey Team) objects from 2004ApJ...617..184R.

• 31,977 <"a href=/cgi-bin/nph-ex_refcode?refcode=20056dF...C...0000J">6dF DR2 galaxies and QSOs with redshifts.

• 1599 VCDFS (VIMOS/VLT Chandra Deep Field Survey) objects from 2004A&A...428.1043L.

• 425 RCS (Red-Sequence Cluster Survey) clusters from 2005ApJS..157....1G.

• 233 MOST (Molonglo Observatory Synthesis Telescope) radio sources from 2004MNRAS.355...44P.

Latest review papers in LEVEL 5 Knowledgebase for Extragalactic Astronomy and Cosmology

• Normal Nearby Galaxies by M. Sauvage et al.

• A Review of the Distance and Structure of the Large Magellanic Cloud by David R. Alves.

• Secular Evolution and the Growth of Pseudobulges in Disk Galaxies by John Kormendy and Mark E. Cornell.

• Scaling Laws for Dark Matter Halos in Late-Type and Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxies by John Kormendy and K.C. Freeman.

• Supermassive Black Holes in Galactic Nuclei by John Kormendy and Karl Gebhardt.

• The X-ray Background and the Deep X-ray Surveys by R. Gilli.

Latest images available in NED's image database

• The 1.4-GHz VLA image for the Spitzer Space Telescope First-Look Survey field with 3565 objects from 2003AJ....125.2411C.

• The 1.4-GHz Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT) image for the Spitzer Space Telescope First-Look Survey verification region with 1048 objects from 2004A&A...424..371M.

• J, H, and K FITS images of the central starburst regions of 24 objects from 1997AJ....113..162C.

---

28 April 2005 Revisions

*** NOTICE: On 2 May 2005 the legacy VT-100/X-Windows telnet interface to NED will be retired. ***

• 220,207 SDSS DR2 and DR3 galaxies and QSOs with redshifts.

• 47,769 objects and redshifts from the July 2003 Release of the 2QZ from 2004MNRAS.349.1397C.

• 2,571 HII Regions within 17 Seyfert Galaxies from 1996ApJS..105...93E.

• 1,927 Galaxies detected by ISO with ISOPHOT at 170microns from 2004A&A...422...39S.

• 1,048 1.4GHz sources in the Spitzer Space Telescope FLSv Region from 2004A&A...424..371M.

• 8,968 Galaxies from the HST ACS Camera from 2004ApJS..150....1B.

• 5,494 Galaxies and Redshifts for the NOAO Fundamental Plane Survey from 2004AJ....128.1558S.

• 4,097 detailed redshifts for 3873 galaxies and 112 clusters of galaxies from 1982MNRAS.200..621C, 1994MNRAS.267..665B, 1997AJ....113..905P, 1998MNRAS.296..599B, 1998MNRAS.300..417R, and 1999MNRAS.305..259W.

• 840 FITS images for quasars and active galactic nuclei at 2cm from 1998AJ....115.1295K and 2004ApJ...609..539K.

Latest review papers in LEVEL 5 Knowledgebase for Extragalactic Astronomy and Cosmology

• Interstellar Dust: What is It, How does It Evolve, And What Are Its Observational Consequences? by Eli Dwek.

• The Warm, Cold, and Very Cold Dusty Universe by Aigen Li.

---

22 April 2005 Revisions

• Diameter Data Frames from

  • 2MASS 3,283,274 radii, equally divided between
    • r_k20fe radii at K = 20.0 mag sec^-2^ and
    • r_ext radii for "total" (extrapolated) magnitudes
  • 2MASS Large Galaxy Atlas 1310 radii (as above) for 655 galaxies
  • RC3: 45,922 diameters; including
    • 21,605 isophotal B-band log D_25 and log R_25 diameters and axis ratios with position angles if known;
    • 2,727 log A_e half-light diameters; and
    • 21,590 isophotal B-band log D_0 diameters corrected for inclination and Galactic extinction;

• 22,187 contour maps for thousands of radio sources, collated from hundreds of papers dating from the 1960s to the 2000s, have been added to NED's image archive over the past 2-3 years.
• 5000 objects from the GOODS-North Field in 2004AJ....127.3121W and 2004AJ....127.3137C.
• Optical and near-infrared images for 57 nearby spiral galaxies from 2004A&A...426.1135K and 2003MNRAS.346..333K.
• The first sets of images from the Spitzer Nearby Galaxies Survey, SINGS, are now available in FITS format. These include NGC 0337, NGC 2798, NGC 3198, NGC 4725, NGC 4826, NGC 5194, NGC 5195, NGC 5408, and NGC 7331.

---

22 December 2004 Revisions

• NED is now providing Diameter Data Frames for a representative but large sampling of nearby galaxies and selected radio sources. In this initial release, a wide variety of optically measured diameters and exponential scale lengths are returned and tabulated for individual objects. The primary sources for these data are

  • UGC: 12,940 diameters, axis ratios, and position angles;
  • MCG: 49,359 diameters; including 21,591 "inner" diameters and 27,768 "outer" diameters;
  • ESO-B: 16,581 diameters and position angles (if given);
  • ESO-LV: 158,778 diameters; including
    • 15,120 B-band major axes, axis ratios, and position angles at D_25;
    • 14,870 B-band major axes at D_26;
    • 13,879 B-band major axes at D_27;
    • 14,937 major axes at 70% of total B light;
    • 15,160 major axes at 80% of total B light;
    • 15,301 major axes at 90% of total B light;
    • 14,073 major axes at 50% of total B light;
    • 13,817 diameters of the circular aperture enclosing 50% of total B light;
    • 11,486 B scale lengths for exponential disk fits;
    • 15,124 B scale lengths from fits to octants; and
    • 15,011 R scale lengths from fits to octants.

  Future releases will include isophotal optical diameters from RC3, 2MASS near-infrared diameters, and additional radio data. As time permits, the By-Parameter search capability will be augmented to allow all-sky searches using diameter constraints.

• Improvements in the Near Name, Near Position, IAU Format, and Advanced All-Sky queries:
  • The Object Type constraints have been re-organized into Classified Extragalactic Objects, Unclassified Extragalactic Candidates, and Components of Galaxies.
  • A "Quick-Pick" button is available to simplify selection of only Classified Extragalactic Objects.
  • Among the Object Type constraints, over 20 categories of "Components of Galaxies" are now available for object inclusion or exclusion (query filters). These include supernovae, HII regions, variable stars, planetary nebulae, supernova remnants, star clusters, and various types of stars.
  • A new "Index of Constraint Types" appears on top of each menu.

• In the By Name query menu, the default value of the "Extended name search?" option located under the Object name entry field has been changed to "No". Be sure to select "Yes" if you want related objects such as components of galaxy pairs, cluster members, or HII regions and variable stars located within the named object.
• About 35,000 6dF DR1 galaxies and QSOs with their redshifts from MNRAS (in press).
• About 2500 HII regions and star clusters in M33 from P. Hodge, B. Skelton, and J. Ashizawa "An Atlas of Local Group Galaxies", and various other papers, principally 1974A&A....37...33B and 1987A&A...174...28C.
• 8000 objects from the Northern Sky Optical Cluster Survey (NSC) 2003AJ....125.2064G.
• 8000 Nearby Cluster Galaxies 2004ApJS..153..397B.
• 5000 Isolated Galaxies 2003ApJ...598..260P.
• 3700 Low Surface Brightness Galaxies (LCSB) 2003A&A...405...99M.
• 2000 Galaxies in southern bright star fields (SBSF) 2003A&A...406..593B.

---

14 June 2004 Revisions

• The NED Team is now endeavoring to make available to its users individually resolved components of nearby galaxies. These new additions include HII regions and related emission-line objects, spectroscopically or radio-classified supernova remnants (SNR), planetary nebulae (PN), as well as star clusters. Finally, over 10,000 variable stars (V*) taken from The General Catalogue of Variable Stars, Vol. V: Extragalactic Variable Stars have now been incorporated into NED.

  A good test case that returns examples of many of these new entries can be found by making a By_Name search on the parent galaxy "NGC 0300".

• 34,419 151MHz 6C sources, and their flux densities, from MNRAS 263, 25, 1993 and references therein.
• The "Bright" sample of 11,204 galaxies from the Millenium Galaxy Catalog (MGC) in MNRAS 344, 307, 2003.
• 4,819 infrared sources in the CHANDRA Deep Field from A&A 403, 493, 2003.
• 3,221 galaxies in ABELL 1631 from ApJ 591, 764, 2003.
• 1,103 radio sources in the VIRMOS VLT Deep Field from A&A 403, 857, 2003.

---

25 March 2004 Revisions

• Through a collaboration with IRSA and the NVO, FITS images archived in NED can now be queried by Celestial Coordinates and Areal Coverage. This is in addition to the original capability to Search for Images by Object Name.
• Version 2.0 of Aladin from CDS has been configured for visualization and interaction with images in the NED archive. When the Java applet is launched (after an image query by object name), overlay planes include markers for objects in NED, the USNO A-2.0, 2MASS Point Source, and NVSS catalogs.
• New links to Cosmology Calculators and Extinction Calculators are available through NED's Main Menu(Home Page).
• Some of the current review articles now available through LEVEL5: A Knowledgebase for Extragalactic Astronomy and Cosmology include
  • Maps of the Cosmos: The Cosmic Microwave Background by Lyman A. Page (2004)
  • The Evolutionary History of Local Group Irregular Galaxies by Eva K. Grebel (2004)
  • Interstellar Dust by B.T. Draine (2004)
  • The Interaction of Radio Sources and X-Ray-Emitting Gas in Cooling Flows by Elisabeth L. Blanton (2004)
  • Astrophysical Origins of Ultrahigh Energy Cosmic Rays by Diego F. Torres & Luis A. Anchordoqui (2004)
  • X-Ray Properties of Groups of Galaxies by John S. Mulchaey (2000)
  • An X-Ray View of Radio Sources by D.A. Schwartz (2004)
  • Observational Cosmology by R.H. Sanders (2004)
  • Dark Matter: Introduction by Martin J. Rees (2004)
  • The Evolution of Tidal Debris by J. Christopher Mihos (2004)
  • TASI Lectures: Introduction to Cosmology by Mark Trodden & Sean M. Carroll (2004)
  • Statistical Challenges in Modern Astronomy by E.D. Feigelson & G.J. Babu (2004)
  • Molecular Gas in Spiral Galaxies by Michele D. Thornley (2004)
  • Dark Matter: Early Considerations by Jaan Einasto (2004)
• Over 130,000 SDSS galaxies with redshifts
• Over 1000 HII regions in nine nearby galaxies including NGC 4395, NGC 5194, and NGC 6822.

---

30 June 2003 Revisions

• Over 12,000 HII regions in 123 galaxies from 17 papers including the Hodge-Kenicutt Atlas.
• 20,000 additional 2MASS sources from the 2MASS Extended Source Catalog (XSC). About 10,000 XSC sources remain to be tied to existing NED objects.

---

15 May 2003 Revisions

• 1.6 million 2MASS sources and JHK photometry for them from the 2MASS Extended Source Catalog (XSC) have been added to NED. About 30,000 XSC sources remain to be tied to existing NED objects.
• 63,500 COMBO-17 objects (Chandra Deep Field area; see 2001A&A...377..442W).
• 27,000 Las Campanas IR Survey objects (Hubble Deep Field South area; see 2002ApJ...570...54C).
• 9,500 galaxies around damped Lyman{alpha} systems (see 2002AJ....123.2206P).
• 7,500 DEEP Groth Strip objects (see 2002ApJS..142....1S ).
• 6,400 galaxies in distant galaxy clusters (see 2002ApJS..142..153S)
• More than 1,300 photometric data points for radio sources and PG QSO's (see 1988AJ.....95...26G, 1989ApJ...347...29S, 1989ApJS...69..365S, 2000AJ....120..604S, and 2000A&A...354..453H).
• MSX-SPIRIT III infrared images of M31, M33, M83, M101, NGC 253, NGC 4631, NGC 4945 and NGC 5055 (see 2002AJ....124.2990K).

---

14 January 2003 Revisions

• The APM Galaxy Survey (Maddox et al.MNRAS 243, 692, 1990) has been loaded. The portion of the survey in NED includes about 3.0 million galaxies in the southern Galactic hemisphere with b <~ -40 deg, and Dec <~ +2.5 deg; and about 500,000 galaxies in the northern Galactic hemisphere between RA ~ 9h 30m to ~14h 30m, and Dec ~ +2.5 deg to ~ -7.5 deg.
• 1.3 million sources from NVSS (Condon et al.AJ 115, 1693, 1998) are loaded. Work continues on the remaining 500,000 sources from this catalog.
• 55,000 sources from WGACAT ( White, Giommi, and Angelini; 2000)) are loaded; work continues on this catalog, too.
• 40,000 galaxies and QSOs from the SDSS Early Data Release (Stoughton et al.AJ 123, 485, 2002) have been loaded.
• 37,000 redshifts from the 2df Galaxy Redshift Survey (Folkes et al.MNRAS 308, 459, 1999) have been loaded.
• More than 5,000 HII regions in 13 large, nearby galaxies have also been loaded.
• OASIS, an image visualization and manipulation tool, is now available for use with FITS images. Click on the OASIS logo on an image list page for more information about using OASIS.
• A new version of ALADIN is also available. Again, click on the ALADIN logo to use the new version and for more information about the new features.

---

23 May 2002 Revisions

• The Advanced All-Sky (formerly "By Parameter") menu provides new capabilities and improvements:
  • You may now select samples from NED based on flux density or magnitude limits. Photometrically constrained searches can be performed with optional joint constraints involving redshift, object types, survey name prefixes, or sky area. Available passbands ranging from gamma rays through the radio spectrum are conveniently labeled with standard names, as well as wavelength and frequency units. This powerful new tool makes use of the extensive multiwavelength coverage of over 4.5 million photometric data points fused in NED (using original and homogenized physical units) for hundreds of thousands of extragalactic objects.
  • A new Index of Constraint Types near the top of the menu is available to help you navigate the various search constrain regions.
  • New Tutorial Examples near the top of the menu will set the options to do various example searches for you. You may use these as guides to selecting your own sample from NED, or you may set the constraints yourself.
  • There are [Submit Query] buttons in each section of the menu to minimize the need for scrolling.
• Preformatted text tables are now the default output for most searches. These substantially speed up data display for searches that return large numbers of objects. HTML tables, which are easier to read but slower to display, are still an option.
• The "Output Format Specifications" section of all object query menus contains new options to sort by ascending or descending redshift.
• NED's home page format has been adjusted to a more logical layout, with "Skyplot" and "Batch Jobs" moved to the "Tools" section.
• Photometric and estimated redshifts are now displayed with the code PHOT or EST, respectively, in the QUAL column of the basic data display. This will make such non-spectroscopic redshifts easier to identify.
• In addition to FITS images, NED is now beginning the process of scanning, archiving, and displaying JPEG images of radio contour plots (e.g. 3C 019, 3C 022, 3C 206, etc.) and 21-cm neutral hydrogen line profiles (e.g. UGC 03468, UGC 03578, etc.) extracted from the published literature. Many sources remain to be identified and scanned in, but new plots will appear as time and resources permit.
• We have begun loading WGACAT (White, Giommi, and Angelini 2000), which was assembled from ROSAT PSPC pointed observations. 5500 sources are currently loaded; the remainder will be loaded over the summer.
• The Tenth (2001) edition of A Catalogue of Quasars and Active Nuclei by M.-P. Veron-Cetty and P. Veron has been folded into NED with unique [VCV2001] names attached to each object.
• The Woudt, Kraan-Korteweg catalog of >8,000 Galaxies Behind the Southern Milky Way (WKK) has been loaded.
• The ROSAT Bright Sample (RBS) catalog has been incorporated.

---

20 March 2002 Revisions

• 400,000 new photometric data points
• 46,600 additional 2dFGRS objects and redshifts
• 13,000 pointers to 1980-1984 radio literature from the Compendium of Extragalactic Radio Continuum Observations (CERCO; Gopal-Krishna et al., 1986)
• 10,000 pointers to pre-1976 literature from RC1 and RC2
• The Carnegie Atlas of Galaxies (images and notes) is now available in NED
• Several thousand other new images, HI maps, rotation curves, spectra, etc.

---

18 December 2001 Revisions

• 37,000 galaxies with redshifts from the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey
• 15,000 QSOs with redshifts from the 2dF QSO Redshift Survey
• 250,000 new photometric measurements
• Catalog and name prefix definitions are now available through hyperlinks in the query reports.
• Photometric data tables and SEDs have been enhanced:
  • Data in published units and homogenized units (Jy vs. Hz) are displayed together by default.
  • By default SEDs are plotted using a "Fixed data range", meaning a fixed minimum and maximum in log (frequency) or log (wavelength) on the X axis and a fixed range of +/- 7 dex centered around the mid-point of the Y axis values. This has the advantage of maintaining a consistent slope for comparing SEDs. The "Autoscale data range" option can be selected to replot an SED inside a viewport computed using only the data values.
  • Error bars and point labels can be toggled on or off.
  • The SED plots can be clicked to zoom in at a position of interest (in a separate window). The zoom factor can be set, and the properties (error bars, point labels, data range, etc.) are inherited from the main plot.
  • Postscript versions of the SEDs (full-range and zoomed plots) can be downloaded.
  • In the data table, homogenized values are displayed in the same units as selected for the SED plot axes:
    X = log(Freq. [Hz]) or log(Wave [microns]) versus
    Y = log(F_nu [Jy]), log(F_nu [W m^-2 Hz^-1]), log(nu*F_nu [Jy-Hz]) , or log(nu*F_nu [W m^-2])
• External Links to the SDSS, UZC, FCSS, and ATNF archives are provided as follows:
  • SDSS (spectra and catalog) and UZC (spectra) archive links appear when the object has a relevant source name (cross-ID).
    Examples: NGC 3720, NGC 1055, and NGC 1087
  • FCSS spectral archive links appear when the object has an FCSS name (cross-ID).
    Examples: NGC 1392 and FCC 223
  • A link to query the ATNF observation log appears for objects with DEC < +20 degrees.
    Examples with ATNF entries: NGC 1068 and AM 1925-724 (Super-Antenna).
• External Links to NVSS, MAST and others have been updated to reflect URL changes at the archive centers
• X-ray images from the first eight ROSAT CDs are available
• Selected non-FITS images and scanned maps are now available in NED's image archive. Examples include images scanned from Arp's Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies. (Click here to retrieve a list of all Arp objects from NED.)

---

24 September 2001 Revisions

• 40,000 galaxies with redshifts from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• 4,000 galaxies from the Fornax Cluster Spectroscopic Survey
• 1,200 DENIS galaxies near the Galactic plane
• 400,000 photometric measurements
• 120,000 FITS images
• 43,000 redshifts
Catalogs in progress:
• NVSS (~300,000 out of 1,800,000 sources)
• APMUKS (2,310,000 out of 3,560,000 galaxies)

---

1 June 2001 Revisions

• More than 520,000 extended sources -- with images -- from the 2MASS 2nd Incremental Release
• More than 60,000 images for extended sources from the 2MASS 1st Incremental Release
• ~18,000 WENSS 325MHz Survey sources
• ~15,000 2QZ (2df QSO Redshift survey) sources
• Updated information for the North and South Hubble Deep Fields
• More than 200,000 references to NED objects from over 2,000 new papers

---

12 October 2000 Revisions

NED cited by Nature as a top ranked database for online astronomy research (October 2000).
• ALADIN IMAGE DISPLAY AND SOURCE OVERLAY TOOL: Results of queries to NED's image archive now include icons like this , which when clicked launch the Aladin Java applet using the specified FITS image. An example illustrating these links is this retrieval of FITS images available for NGC 7469. This tool allows you to superimpose entries from NED, the USNO catalog and various other astronomical catalogs, and to interactively access related data and information for all known objects in the field. You can also measure interactively positions and distances in celestial coordinates. Unlike other programs of this nature, Aladin is a Java applet that requires no download or special installation steps on your computer, just a current Web browser version that supports Java applets. The driving motivation behind Aladin is to provide a visual summary of the multi-wavelength sky. Aladin was developed by François Bonnarel and Pierre Fernique and is configured with the NED interface through a cooperative agreement between NED and the CDS. More information about Aladin is available at the CDS.
• Associations:New extragalactic sources and data for previously known sources are becoming available at an ever increasing rate and in larger numbers than ever before. In an effort to make large numbers of sources from new large-scale sky surveys accessible as soon as possible, NED now includes objects in complex regions where secure cross-identifications with objects already in NED have not yet been fully established. These relations are referred to as Associations, to distinguish them from the majority of relations in NED that have secure cross-identifications. Links to association information, when available, are listed in the Assoc column and in the links located next to the DSS image cutout in the Essential Data reports. An example with links leading to association data is provided with this By Name search on APMUKS(BJ) B003425.77-334949.0; these association data can also be viewed directly here. The information includes separations, position angles, and goodness-of-fit parameters from the process of correlating the positional uncertainty ellipses of the new object with those of nearby objects already in NED. More information is available in the Association Search Results Help.
• Improved links to objects referenced in papers: Abstract pages include links (top and bottom) to search the database for all objects referenced in the paper; these links now indicate the number of objects involved. An example abstract is here, where you can Retrieve 173 NED objects in this paper.
• Improved alignment of pre-formatted text used in the HTML reports from queries containing large result sets.

---

18 April 2000 Revisions

Welcome to the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED). This is the tenth release of NED's World Wide Web-based interface. Changes since the previous release:

Search results now include convenient links to several other on-line image, catalog, and observing log services. Available resources include

• Mission archives at
  • IRSA (2MASS, IRAS, MSX),
  • MAST (HST, IUE, EUVE, etc.),
  • HEASARC (HEAO, GINGA, EXOSAT, EINSTEIN, XTE, ROSAT, etc.),
• Object and catalog data at CDS (SIMBAD and VizieR),
• As well as IMPrESS (GSFC, ADF/ADC),
• NVSS and FIRST (NRAO),
• The VLA Observation Log,
• Astrobrowse (HEASARC)
and several other services. For more information, see External Links.

---

22 March 2000 Revisions

This is the ninth release of NED's World Wide Web-based interface. Changes since the previous release:

• The option of having a frames-based version of the WEB interface;
• The Text Search option now searches the thesis abstracts in NED, as well as the journal abstracts and LEVEL5;
• Individual reset buttons are now available on most data input pages;
• Fast preformatted text output is now the default for By Parameter object searches; HTML formatted tables are a selectable option;
• The Name Prefix selection lists have been updated to include many new catalogs;
• "Quick-pick" option buttons/bars have been added for the two common equinoxes (B1950.0 and J2000.0), and for the name prefixes of NED's largest catalogs;
• The first input box of each form is pre-selected so that you no longer have to click to begin typing in that box;
• A list of Web Links to selected Internet sites is now included for easier access to astronomical services related to NED.

---

17 December 1999 Revisions

This is the eighth release of NED's World Wide Web-based interface. Changes since the previous release include a Text Search option, implementation of the Schlegel et al. foreground Galactic extinction for display on the object search results pages and in the coordinate calculator, and a link to the LEVEL5 Extragalactic Knowledgebase.

The fifth release inaugurated the use of the Informix Database Manager on upgraded Sun UltraSPARC servers at IPAC. Most users should see shorter database search times, though network transmission times will still be a major factor in NED's apparent speed.