catremote is a tool for querying remote astronomical catalogues, databases and archives via the
Internet. It allows remote catalogues to be queried and the resulting table to be saved as a local file. It
also provides a number of related auxiliary functions.
catremote can be used interactively. However, it is more likely to be incorporated in a script or GUI.
This document describes the use of catremote in sufficient detail to allow a programmer to use it in a
script or GUI which he is developing. Additionally the document may be useful to users who simply
wish to run catremote interactively, particularly if they wish to make use of all its facilities. There is a
simple introduction to the use of catremote in SUN/190[4] which may be more suitable for new users than the
present document.
catremote is part of the astronomical catalogue and table manipulation package CURSA (see
SUN/190[4]). It is written in Perl and uses the ‘ACL format’ (discussed briefly below) to
access remote catalogues and databases. A variety of remote catalogues and databases
can be accessed using this format; in the first instance see SUN/190 for details of what is
available.