How does SIMBAD resolve the target name?
SIMBAD is a database of basic data, cross-identifications and bibliography for astronomical objects outside the solar system. The SIMBAD client routines take your target name and return the center coordinates for the object, provided the object has been mentioned in the literature or is listed on a published catalog. We then query the archive for all observations whose pointing falls within the radius given in the form. The client routines are provided by courtesy of the Centre de Donnes astronomiques de Strasbourg • Ranges can be given as value1..value2, does this apply only to numbers? What about dates? The query operators “..”, “>” and “<" apply to numbers and dates. For instance, you can specify a range of nights as: 19 01 2003 .. 21 01 2003 or 19 Jan 2003 .. 21 Jan 2003 By the way, dates can be entered with any separators as long as they follow the european convention (DD MM instead of MM DD). More information on query operators is given in the WDB help page. • What is the meaning
