We present results of a search for giant radio galaxies (GRGs) with a projected largest linear size in excess of 1 Mpc. We designed a computational algorithm to identify contiguous emission regions, large and elongated enough to serve as GRG candidat
es, and applied it to the entire 1.4-GHz NRAO VLA Sky survey (NVSS). In a subsequent visual inspection of 1000 such regions we discovered 15 new GRGs, as well as many other candidate GRGs, some of them previously reported, for which no redshift was known. Our follow-up spectroscopy of 25 of the brighter hosts using two 2.1-m telescopes in Mexico, and four fainter hosts with the 10.4-m Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC), yielded another 24 GRGs. We also obtained higher-resolution radio images with the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array for GRG candidates with inconclusive radio structures in NVSS.
We determined accurate positions for 3000 of the faint blue stars in the PHL (Palomar-Haro-Luyten) and Ton/TonS catalogues. These were published from 1957 to 1962, and, aimed at finding new white dwarfs, provide approximate positions for about 10750
blue stellar objects. Some of these stars had become known as quasars, a type of objects unheard-of before 1963. We derived subarcsec positions from a comparison of published finding charts with images from the first-epoch Digitized Sky Survey. Numerous objects are now well known, but unfortunately neither their PHL or Ton numbers, nor their discoverers, are recognized in current databases. A comparison with modern radio, IR, UV and X-ray surveys leads us to suggest that the fraction of extragalactic objects in the PHL and Ton catalogues is at least 15 per cent. However, because we failed to locate the original PHL plates or finding charts, it may be impossible to correctly identify the remaining 7726 PHL objects.
We describe the current status of CATS (astrophysical CATalogs Support system), a publicly accessible tool maintained at Special Astrophysical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences (SAO RAS) (http://cats.sao.ru) allowing one to search hundre
ds of catalogs of astronomical objects discovered all along the electromagnetic spectrum. Our emphasis is mainly on catalogs of radio continuum sources observed from 10 MHz to 245 GHz, and secondly on catalogs of objects such as radio and active stars, X-ray binaries, planetary nebulae, HII regions, supernova remnants, pulsars, nearby and radio galaxies, AGN and quasars. CATS also includes the catalogs from the largest extragalactic surveys with non-radio waves. In 2008 CATS comprised a total of about 10e9 records from over 400 catalogs in the radio, IR, optical and X-ray windows, including most source catalogs deriving from observations with the Russian radio telescope RATAN-600. CATS offers several search tools through different ways of access, e.g. via web interface and e-mail. Since its creation in 1997 CATS has managed about 10,000 requests. Currently CATS is used by external users about 1500 times per day and since its opening to the public in 1997 has received about 4000 requests for its selection and matching tasks.
