Astro::Catalog::SuperCOSMOS module
----------------------------------  

What is it?
-----------

The module is an object orientated interface to the online SuperCOSMOS 
catalogue. Full POD documentation is available as part of the module itself.

Requirements
------------

The Astro::Catalog::SuperCOSMOS module requires the following external 
modules to function
   
   Astro::Catalog
   Astro::Catalog::Star
   Astro::Aladin
   
all of these modules are available from CPAN <http://www.cpan.org/>.

What is Aladin?
---------------

Aladin is an interactive software sky atlas allowing the user to visualize 
digitized images of any part of the sky, to superimpose entries from 
astronomical catalogues or databases, and to interactively access related 
data and information from the Simbad database and the VizieR service and 
other archives for all known objects in the field. The driving motivation 
behind Aladin is the desire to provide a visual summary of the multi-wavelength
sky. It is particularly useful for multi-spectral cross-identifications of
astronomical sources, observation preparation and quality control of new 
data sets (by comparison with standard catalogues covering the same region 
of sky). Aladin is developed and maintained by the Centre de Donnees
astronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS). The Aladin project manager is Francois
Bonnarel <bonnarel@astro.u-strasbg.fr>

See http://aladin.u-strasbg.fr/aladin.gml for more information about the
Aladin Project. The Astro::Aladin module wraps the Aladin CDS Java Tool
and requires Perl 5.7.3 or above to install and run.

You do not have to install either Astro::Aladin or Astro::Catalog::SuperCOSMOS
to sucessfully make use of the other modules in the Astro::Catalog package.

Provides
--------

The package provides the following classes

    Astro::Catalog::SuperCOSMOS::Query

further information can be found in the POD included in Query.pm

Where can I get it?
-------------------

The package is availabe from CPAN <http://www.cpan.org/> and from
the eSTAR Project at http://www.estar.org.uk/

Installation
------------

Installation is automated using the ExtUtils::MakeMaker library

     % perl Makefile.PL
     % make
     % make test
     % make install

Authors
-------

The module was written by Alasdair Allan <aa@astro.ex.ac.uk>, of the 
University of Exeter Astrophysics Group (http://www.astro.ex.ac.uk/) 
as part of his work for the eSTAR project.

License
-------
This package is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software
Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later
version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,but WITHOUT ANY
WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with
this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple
Place,Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307, USA
