The NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database, NED, supported by the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC), is a computer-based central archive intended to accumulate a broad range of published extragalactic data (including radio, optical, UV, IR and X-ray sources), and organize them for fast and flexible retrieval via electronic networks. It is currently the most used of such retrieval services. Batch searches for source lists with up to 3000 objects per job are supported, and the results can be retrieved via anonymous FTP (normally within a few hours, after the user is notified via e-mail).
As of March 1994, NED provides positions, names, and basic data for about 266,000 extragalactic objects as well as 480,000 bibliographic references to 23,000 published papers and 630,000 photometric data points from catalogs and papers. Also available on-line are abstracts of 8,000 recent articles from several journals (A&A, AJ, ApJ, Ast. Reports, IAU Circ., MNRAS, PAS Japan, PASP) and of 1,000 doctoral dissertations (since 1983) of extragalactic interest. NED encourages submission of English abstracts of any Ph. D. thesis on extragalactic objects. NED has an X Window Graphical User Interface (GUI) supporting mouse-driven menus, and image-display capabilities. Style menus for VT100 terminals continue to be supported. They provide a faster (though more limited) character-based interface. To access NED, telnet to ned.ipac.caltech.edu (134.4.10.119) and login as user ned. For help or more information, send mail to ned@ipac.caltech.edu.
NED is also accessible using Mosaic. If you are familiar with the Web, connect to IPAC using URL http://www.ipac.caltech.edu/home.html. [Reference: Helou (1991).]