Types of SearchesThere are several ways to search NED's directory of the extragalactic literature. Click the following links for Search or Help:
Text Search in NED's Abstracts or Level 5 is still available from the Classic Panel Menu:
Reference Search by Author NameThis page allows you to search, by authors' last names, with optional data content and keyword constraints, for literature references or for thesis abstracts. The page has two sections -- a Quick Search without Keywords section, and a Search with Data Content and/or Topical Keywords section. The first initiates NED's traditional reference search, returning all of NED's references for a particular object. The second uses keywords to narrow your search. In general, the keyword search takes longer than the traditional search; but because it returns a shorter, targeted list, it can save time in finding the reference(s) you want. Data Entry -- Quick Search Without KeywordsIn the "Enter author name" box in the first section of the page, type the last name of the person for whose theses or literature references you wish to search. You may use either capital or lower case letters, though you must type the complete name. If the name includes more than one word (e.g. "van den Bergh"), you may enter the entire name in single or double quotation marks, or you may enter just the unique word in the name (e.g. "Bergh" in this example). Logical operators "AND" and "OR" are also available to find papers with multiple authors (e.g. "Freedman AND Madore" or "Freedman AND Madore AND Mould"). If the author names are separated by spaces (or any other character), the search assumes a logical "OR" (e.g. "Freedman Madore" is treated as "Freedman OR Madore", as is "Freedman & Madore", "Freedman ; Madore", or "Freedman W Madore"). Alternate spellings for author names are possible, especially where a name is transliterated into English from another language. For example, "Markarian" is sometimes spelled "Markaryan". If you suspect that the name you are searching for has an alternate spelling, please do another search for the alternate. While NED has tried to be consistent in its spelling of transliterated names, literature references from other sources may use the alternate spelling. Choose either "Papers" or "Thesis" to retrieve the appropriate references. The author's name need not be the first one in the author list, and the search returns all references with that name regardless of its position in the author list. However, due to database limitations, only the first 160 ASCII characters of the author list and article title can be searched for during a reference search. Long author lists and long titles are not completely displayed, and author searches will not return papers when the name is not included in the first 160 characters of the author list. Note however, that NED's abstracts include the full title and author list. Clicking on the reference codes in the list of search results will show the complete titles and author lists. Click on "Search References (No Keywords)" to initiate the author name search. You may narrow your literature search by combining an object name or author's name with Data Content and/or Topical Keywords. NED has adopted keywords from ARIBIB. Data Entry -- Searches With KeywordsEnter the author name as outlined above, but in the second section of the Reference Search page. Then, click the "Yes" radio button to "Filter on NED Data Content Keywords" and chose the keywords you wish to use (all are set by default; click "Clear Data Content Filters" to unset them so that you can more easily choose just one or two). Click the "Yes" radio button to "Filter on General Literature Keywords" and choose from those shown in the selection boxes. Keywords are grouped in the selection boxes by topic. You may choose as many keywords as you wish; most browsers use the "Shift" key in conjunction with the left mouse button for selecting multiple entries in a form. You may also clear all the selected keywords by clicking the "Clear Topical Keywords" button. Note that the only output format available with keyword searches is "HTML preformatted text". Finally, click one of the "Search References (With Keywords)" buttons to initiate your search. ResultsWhen a search has completed successfully, the interface opens a new window with the list of references or theses which include the author's name. The references are ordered chronologically with the most recent first. Clicking on the highlighted reference code will open a new window with the full title, author list, and -- for papers after 1988 -- the abstract. CommentsSearches by relatively common last names will return papers and theses by more than one author. For example, searching for "Smith" currently returns seven theses by seven different astronomers named Smith. It is not yet possible to constrain searches by first name, or by initials. You may also find that more than one thesis is listed for some authors; in general, one is a master's thesis, the other is a doctoral dissertation.
Go to the
Reference Search by Author Name Input Page.
Go to the Reference Search
by Object Name Input Page.
Reference Search By Object NameThis page allows you to search NED's directory of the extragalactic literature by object name, with optional data content and keyword constraints. The page has two sections -- a Quick Search without Keywords section, and a Search with Data Content and/or Topical Keywords section. The first initiates NED's traditional reference search, returning all of NED's references for a particular object. The second uses keywords to narrow your search. In general, the keyword search takes longer than the traditional search; but because it returns a shorter, targeted list, it can save time in finding the reference(s) you want. Data Entry -- Quick Search Without KeywordsIn the first section of the page, type the name of the object you wish to search for in the "Enter object name:" box. The NED interface allows substantial freedom in formats and conventions for names, so type the name in any format you wish. When you submit your search, NED's name interpreter will attempt to translate your input into a name that NED recognizes. If it cannot interpret the name you typed, a page will appear with a message explaining the most likely problem with your input. These usually fall into three categories. In all three cases, click your browser's "Back" button to go back to the search page, and enter another object name. (1) If the name you entered has an acceptable catalog name, but the object number within the catalog is not within the range of numbers for that catalog, the page will tell you this. An example is "M111"; there are only 110 entries in the Messier catalog. (2) If the catalog name itself is ambiguous, the page will list the acceptable possibilities. An example is "A123"; this could be "Abell 123", "Arakelian 123", "Arp 123", "Asiago1 023", or "[RC1] A1203". (3) If the name interpreter does not recognize the catalog, the page will sometimes suggest alternative catalogs, sometimes not. In either case, click the "Back" button and try another name. You may set two other input options on this page: "Related Object Name Search?" (default is "No"). If "Yes", your search will return a list of references to all objects beginning with a name that is on the object with the name you entered. For example, "NGC 4321" will return references for not only "NGC 4321" itself, but also for "NGC 4321:[IPA98] H02", "NGC 4321:SN 1901B", and so on for all objects beginning with "NGC 4321". NED Standard Names has more details on these extensions. If you wish to restrict your search to a specific range of years, or to a single year, type in the beginning and ending years of your search in the "Begin Year" and "End Year" fields. Type the same year in both fields if you wish to search the literature for only a single year. NED currently stores nearly all extragalactic references from 1983 to the present, but has abstracts for articles in the major journals only from 1989 to the present. References and abstracts before these dates are being entered as time permits. Finally, choose an output format for the list of references. Currently, the options are
Click on "Search References (No Keywords)" to initiate your search. You may narrow your literature search by combining an object name or author's name with Data Content and/or Topical Keywords. NED has adopted keywords from ARIBIB. Data Entry -- Searches With KeywordsEnter the object name as outlined above, but in the second section of the Reference Search page. Then, click the "Yes" radio button to "Filter on NED Data Content Keywords" and chose the keywords you wish to use (all are set by default; click "Clear Data Content Filters" to unset them so that you can more easily choose just one or two). Click the "Yes" radio button to "Filter on General Literature Keywords" and choose from those shown in the selection boxes. Keywords are grouped in the selection boxes by topic. You may choose as many keywords as you wish; most browsers use the "Shift" key in conjunction with the left mouse button for selecting multiple entries in a form. You may also clear all the selected keywords by clicking the "Clear Topical Keywords" button. Note that the only output format available with keyword searches is "HTML preformatted text". Finally, click one of the "Search References (With Keywords)" buttons to initiate your search. ResultsWhen a search has completed successfully, the interface opens a new window with a list of references for the object. Click on the highlighted reference code for the full NED reference for a given paper. Papers published later than 1988 also have full abstracts in NED. For earlier papers, NED has only the titles and authors of the papers, so we have provided a link to the Astrophysics Data System Abstract Service which has the full abstract for most astronomical papers in the major journals.
Go to the Reference
Search by Object Name Input Page.
LEVEL 5 KnowledgebaseIn addition to NED's various literature searches, NED users have access to the LEVEL 5 Knowledgebase for Extragalactic Astronomy and Cosmology, a hyperlinked WEB site of original documents and reviews and/or electronic links to articles of current and lasting interest to cosmologists, particle physicists, and extragalactic astronomers.
Go to LEVEL 5.
Go to NED's Master List of Galaxy
Distances.
Search for Journal AbstractsThis page allows you to retrieve abstracts of papers or IAU circulars by specifying the associated bibliographic reference. NED attempts to store all abstracts of interest to extragalactic astronomy published since 1988 (and many before), even if they do not contribute new data on individual objects. The interface will help you to locate the abstract even if you do not know the exact reference, by indicating the acceptable combinations of years and volume numbers for each journal. It also allows you to browse through all abstracts from a given volume. Data Entry
Once a journal has been selected, the interface checks year and volume number to verify that they are compatible. If they are not, the correct volume numbers are displayed. Use the "Reset" button to return all the input fields to their default values. Click on "Submit Query" to initiate the abstract search. ResultsWhen the search is successful, NED will display the appropriate list of papers with reference codes and the first few letters of the author and title fields. If you asked for a specific abstract, only that paper will be listed. Select the abstract you wish to see; it will be displayed in a new window. If NED has no abstracts stored for the particular year or volume number you selected, it will return a message to that effect. This does not mean that NED does not have data from a paper in that year or volume since NED's abstracts are loaded separately from the data. If NED does not have the particular abstract you wish to see, try the NASA Astrophysics Data System Abstract Service.
Go to the Abstract Search
Input Page.
Search for Thesis AbstractsThis page allows you to retrieve abstracts of dissertation theses by specifying a range of years. Having retrieved a list of theses, you may browse through the thesis abstracts. To search for an abstract, simply type in a range of years, then click on "Submit". To search for a single year, type the same year in both "Begin Year:" and "End year:" fields. Use the "Reset" button to return all the input fields to their default values. When the search is successful, a page with a list of dissertations will appear. You may browse through the list and click on any title of interest to you. The thesis abstract will be displayed in a new window. NED tries to store as many thesis abstracts of interest to extragalactic astronomy as can be obtained. If you know of theses that are not represented in NED, please send us copies of their abstracts for inclusion. Some of the thesis abstracts in NED are displayed courtesy of ProQuest (formerly UMI/University Microfilms, Inc.). You may order complete copies of most of the theses directly from ProQuest/UMI.
Go to the Thesis Search
Input Page.
Search for Text in NED's Abstracts or in LEVEL 5This page allows you to search for words -- single or in Boolean combinations -- that occur in NED's abstracts or in the LEVEL 5 Extragalactic Knowledgebase. Data EntryEnter the word you wish to search for in the box. Searches are not case-sensitive; e.g. "AGN" and "agn" will give identical results. Boolean searches using "and", "or", and "not" are also allowed. You may search NED's abstracts, or LEVEL 5, or both. Click on "Find" to initiate the search. ResultsWhen a search has completed successfully, the window clears. A few seconds later, a new page opens with a summary of the search results showing the number of NED abstracts and/or LEVEL 5 files in which your word(s) occurs. Links to the first ten abstracts/files are shown, along with the first one or two lines from each abstract/file. There is also a link for accessing the next ten abstracts/files returned by the search. Finally, the search box appears at the bottom of the results page so that you may do a new text search if you wish. CommentsThe text search uses an index of all the words that occur in NED's abstracts and in LEVEL 5 (common words, e.g. "and", "the", "but", are not indexed). This means that a text search on an author's name will often return more abstracts than an author name search (which searches only the author list, not the text of the abstract itself).
Go to the Text Search
Page.
NED Standard NamesObject names are separated into catalog identifier and member identifier. The name interpreter checks the catalog identifier to certify that it points uniquely to a catalog recognized by the database. The name interpreter then checks the member identifier to certify that it corresponds to the conventions of the catalog identified (e.g. is it a sequential number, or a combination of numbers and letters, etc?), and that it does not exceed certain limits (e.g. the number of objects in catalog). The left hand column of the following table contains examples of input names recognized by the interpreter. The right hand column shows the NED standard formats.
Names with square bracket prefixes (e.g. "[HB89]" and "[WB92]") usually come from papers published in journals, while those names with unbracketed prefixes (e.g. "NGC" and "IRAS") usually come from separately published catalogs. There are exceptions, however; examples include "[RC2]" and "87GB". Some names have combination prefixes (e.g. "87GB[BWE91]" and "ABELL 400:[D80]"). Objects in multiple systems without existing unique names are formed by the name of the system itself followed by "NEDnn", where "nn" is a decimal number starting with "01" (example: "ARP 294 NED01" and "ARP 294 NED02"). Similarly, objects found only in catalog notes are given names beginning with the name of the cataloged object followed by "NOTESnn" (example: "UGC 01562 NOTES01" and "UGC 01562 NOTES02"). Sources named in non-optical catalogs or lists, which are later found to be coincident with galaxies but which are not renamed, have "ID" appended to their original names (example: "IRAS 04356+3412 ID"). In this case, the Preferred Object Type is also changed to "Galaxy".
|