youyouli-astro/TeVCat_HATS

TeVCat in HATS format

A snapshot of TeVCat, the online catalog of TeV gamma-ray sources, converted to the HATS format so it can be queried and crossmatched with LSDB alongside other HATS catalogs, such as those from the Multimodal Universe.

Snapshot	2026-09-17
Sources	363
Size	~0.4 MB
Build code and validation	github.com/youyou-astro/TeVCat_HATS

TeVCat is maintained by its own team; this dataset only redistributes a formatted copy. See Citation and terms before reusing the data.

Contents

• collection.properties: HATS collection metadata (open the repository root with LSDB)
• tevcat/: object catalog
• tevcat_30arcmin/: margin cache (default, attached automatically)
• tevcat_canonical_name/: index table for lookup by name

Usage

Reading directly from Hugging Face with hf:// paths requires pip install lsdb huggingface_hub.

import lsdb

url = "hf://datasets/youyouli-astro/tevcat"
tev = lsdb.open_catalog(url)                   # default columns only
tev_all = lsdb.open_catalog(url, columns="all")

# Lookup by name, using the index table
crab = tev.id_search(values={"canonical_name": "Crab"}).compute()

# Cone search
from lsdb import ConeSearch
near = lsdb.open_catalog(url, search_filter=ConeSearch(ra=83.63, dec=22.01, radius_arcsec=3 * 3600)).compute()

# Crossmatch with another HATS catalog
other = lsdb.open_catalog("hf://datasets/<owner>/<other_catalog>")
xm = tev.crossmatch(other, radius_arcsec=360, n_neighbors=1, suffix_method="overlapping_columns").compute()

Choosing a crossmatch radius. TeV source localizations are typically 0.01–0.1°, and many sources are extended (see is_extended, size_x_deg, size_y_deg). Arcsecond radii suitable for optical catalogs will miss most real associations. Choose the radius according to the source class and localization, and estimate chance coincidences, for example by shifting positions.

Crossmatching in the other direction. When the other catalog is on the left and TeVCat on the right, LSDB uses the TeVCat margin cache. It is 30 arcmin wide, so matches remain complete across partition boundaries only for radii up to 30 arcmin.

Columns

Positions are ICRS (J2000) in degrees. Missing values are null.

Column	Type	Unit	Description
tevcat_id	int		TeVCat internal source ID (sort key)
canonical_name	str		Common name, e.g. Crab (indexed)
catalog_name	str		TeVCat designation, TeV Jhhmm+ddd
other_names	str		Alternative names as given by TeVCat
ra, dec	float	deg	ICRS coordinates
glon, glat	float	deg	Galactic coordinates
source_type	int		TeVCat source type code
source_type_name	str		Source class, e.g. HBL, PWN, SNR, UNID
tevcat_subcatalog	str		TeVCat sub-catalog, e.g. default or newly announced
discoverer	str		Observatory credited with the discovery
discovery_date	int	yyyymm	Discovery date
is_extended	bool		Flagged as extended by TeVCat
size_x_deg, size_y_deg	float	deg	Extension; 0 means no size given
variability	int		TeVCat variability flag
flux_crab	float	Crab units	Flux as listed by TeVCat
spec_idx	float		Spectral index
eth_gev	float	GeV	Energy threshold
distance_kpc	float	kpc	Distance, for Galactic sources
redshift	float		Redshift, for extragalactic sources

_healpix_29 is the HATS spatial index and is used as the dataframe index.

Fluxes, indices and thresholds come from heterogeneous measurements by different instruments and should not be treated as a homogeneous sample. For quantitative work, go back to the references linked on each source's TeVCat page.

Citation and terms

If you use this data, please cite:

• TeVCat: Wakely, S. P. & Horan, D. (2008), TeVCat: An online catalog for Very High Energy Gamma-Ray Astronomy, Proc. 30th ICRC, 3, 1341. Also acknowledge the original discovery papers for the sources you use.
• HATS/LSDB: Using LSDB to enable large-scale catalog distribution, cross-matching, and analytics, arXiv:2501.02103.

The catalog was retrieved with PyTeVCat, an unofficial interface not maintained by the TeVCat team. The data remain subject to TeVCat's terms of use; see tevcat.org.