IRAS Point Source Catalog (PSC) and Faint Source Catalog (FSC)

(Latest revision: 18 July 2017)

Data

IRAS PSC and FSC were read from magnetic tapes from the National Space Science Data Center (NSSDC) in 1990. More details can be found at https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=19890004823 and http://irsa.ipac.caltech.edu/IRASdocs/surveys/fsc.html.

NED nomenclature

Format: IRAS HHMMm+/-DDMM (for PSC), IRAS FHHMMm+/-DDMM (for FSC)
Example: IRAS 12265+0219, IRAS F12265+0219

Processing Notes

When the IRAS catalogs were loaded in 1992-1993, various filters were applied to improve the chances of a source being extragalactic.

FSC sources were selected using the following "color" and quality constraints:
1) F(25)/F(60) < 2.0 AND
2) Q(60) ≥ 3

PSC sources were selected using the same flux and color filters as above, with three additional filters based on the IRAS "cirrus" flags:
1) cirr1 < 9 AND
2) cirr2 < 7 AND
3) cirr3 < 75

In addition, all PSC sources in the areas of the LMC, SMC, M31, and M33 were loaded into NED and flagged as being within the boundaries of those galaxies.

Since these initial catalog loads were performed, many additional IRAS sources have entered NED while ingesting data from the literature. As of July 2017, there are 30,539 IRAS PSC sources and 64,442 IRAS FSC sources in the database.