SIMBAD

SIMBAD was created by merging the Catalog of Stellar Identifications (CSI) and the Bibliographic Star Index as they existed at the Meudon Computer Centre until 1979, and then expanded by additional source data from other catalogues and the academic literature.

[1] Version 3, developed in the C language and running on UNIX stations at the Volgograd Observatory, was released in 1990.

Fall of 2006 saw the release of Version 4 of the database, now stored in PostgreSQL, and the supporting software, now written entirely in Java.

[2][3] As of 1 June 2020[update], SIMBAD contains information for 5,800,000 stars and about 5,500,000 nonstellar objects (galaxies, planetary nebulae, clusters, novae and supernovae, etc.).

[3] The minor planet 4692 SIMBAD was named in its honour.