V/39                4th Catalog of Orbits of Visual Binaries   (Worley+, 1983)
The Fourth Catalog of Orbits of Visual Binary Stars
     Worley C.E., Heintz W.D.
    <Publ. U.S. Naval Obs. (2) 24, part VII (1983)>
    =1983PUSNO..24g...1W 1983PUSNO..24g...1W       (SIMBAD/NED RefCode)
ADC_Keywords: Binaries, orbits ; Stars, double and multiple
Description:
   The Finsen-Worley Catalog (1970), supplemented by all subsequently
   published orbits known to Worley and Heintz as of 1 July 1982
   formed the basis for the present compilation. Practically all
   stars having visual orbits were reobserved in the preceding
   decade, often repeatedly either with micrometers or with speckle
   interferometers. Astrometric solutions are included but only if
   they were judged to be relatively certain. Orbits with period
   greater than 4000 years and hyperbolic orbits were rejected as
   being unreliable. The catalog contains 928 orbits of 847 systems
   (counting triples as two systems). There are 23 orbits of
   unresolved systems.
   The catalog contains for each system the names of the star and
   the components involved, the 1900 position, the ADS number, the
   magnitude and spectral type for each component, the orbital
   elements, the equinox of the node, the quality of the orbit, the
   date of the last observation, the inclusive dates for which an
   ephemeris is given by the author, the computer of the orbit, and a
   reference.
File Summary:
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 FileName    Lrecl    Records    Explanations
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ReadMe          80          .    This file
intro.doc       80        263    Introduction to the Catalogue
catalog.dat    262        933    4th Catalogue of Orbits of Visual Binary Stars
notes.dat       79        612    Notes about flagged orbits
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Byte-by-byte Description of file: catalog.dat
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   Bytes Format  Units   Label    Explanations
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   2-  3  I2     h       RAh      Hours RA, 1900.0
   5-  8  F4.1   min     RAm      Minutes RA, 1900.0
      11  A1     ---     DE-      Sign Dec, 1900.0
  12- 13  I2     deg     DEd      Degrees Dec, 1900.0
  15- 16  I2     arcmin  DEm      Minutes Dec, 1900.0
      17  A1     ---     Note     [*] '*' indicates a note in file "notes"
  20- 25  A6     ---     ADS      Aitken's Double Star Catalog (ADS) designation
  27- 31  F5.2   mag     MagA     ? Magnitude of component A
      32  A1     ---     n_MagA   [V] 'V' if MagA is variable
  34- 38  F5.2   mag     MagB     ? Magnitude of component B
      39  A1     ---     n_MagB   [V] 'V' if MagB is variable
  42- 50  F9.4   a       Period   Period of the binary star orbit
  51- 57  F7.3   arcsec  Axis     ? Semi-major axis of the orbit
  60- 65  F6.2   deg     Incl     [0/180] Inclination (i) of the orbit
  68- 73  F6.2   deg     Omega    [0/360[? Position of the Node
      74  A1     ---     n_Omega  [*] '*' if Omega is identified as the
                                      ascending node
      78  A1     ---     n_Grade  [A] 'A' indicates ambiguities (see intro)
      79  I1     ---     Grade    [1/5]? The grade from 1 (definitive) to
                                        5 (indeterminate), see file intro
  82- 85  I4     a       DateObs  ? Date of last observation used in computation
  89-132  A44    ---     Author   Computer of the orbit
 133-159  A27    ---     Name     Common names of the star
 160-166  A7     ---     SpTypeA  Spectral type of component A
 167-173  A7     ---     SpTypeB  Spectral type of component B (1)
 175-182  F8.3   a       PeriT    ? Time of periastron passage
 184-189  F6.3   ---     Ecc      [0/1]? Eccentricity
 192-197  F6.2   deg     omega    [0/360[? Longitude of Peri reckoned from Omega
 200-203  I4     a       Eqomega  ? Equinox of Omega
 210-218  A9     ---     Ephem    Inclusive dates of ephemeris
 221-262  A42    ---     Ref      Text of bibliographic reference
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Note (1): An '*' following this value indicates the spectral types
    have been inferred from a combined spectrum and a known
    magnitude difference.
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Byte-by-byte Description of file: notes.dat
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   Bytes Format  Units   Label    Explanations
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   1- 10  A10    ---     RADec    Name based on 1900 position, form "HHMMm+DDMM"
  13- 79  A67    ---     Note     Notes
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References:
  Finsen, W.S. and Worley, C.E., 1970, Republic Obser.. Circ. 7, 203
Historical Notes:
  * From the "Selected Astronomical Catalogs" Vol. 1 CD-ROM (1992), directory
         /combined/binorbit
  * 02-Mar-1995: hours of RA (29) in record # 793 corrected
  * 23-Sep-1996: aligned record #642 (Gail L. Schneider)
  * 16-Oct-1996: corrected the "Note" flag (catalog) and
    RADec values (notes) to ensure the correspondance.
(End)                  Francois Ochsenbein [CDS Catalogues Service]  02-Mar-1995