TESS Input Catalog

The TESS Input Catalog (TIC) is a comprehensive collection of sources on the sky, for use by the TESS mission to select target stars to observe, and to provide stellar parameters useful for the evaluation of transit signals. The TIC is intended to enable the selection of optimal targets for the planet transit search, to enable calculation of flux contamination in the TESS aperture for each target, and to provide reliable stellar radii for calculating planetary radii, which in turn determines the targets that will receive mission-supported photometric and spectroscopic follow-up. The TIC is also essential for the community to select targets through the Guest Investigator program. The Gaia DR2 and 2MASS Point Source catalogs form the base point for the TIC, with further cross-matches between LAMOST DR4, SuperBlink, RAVE DR5, APOGEE DR14, UCAC4 and 5, the KIC, the EPIC, Tycho-2, APASS DR9, ALLWISE, and SDSS point source catalogs. Specially curated lists containing hot subdwarfs, cool dwarfs, Guest Investigator targets, and Hipparcos targets are also incorporated into the TIC.