I/113A General Catalogue of 33342 stars (GC) (Boss 1937)
General Catalogue of 33342 stars (Version 1985)
BOSS B.
<Carnegie Inst. of Wash. Publ. 468 (1937)>
=1937GC....C......0B 1937GC....C......0B
ADC_Keywords: Fundamental catalog ; Positional data ; Proper motions ;
Stars, fundamental
Description:
The GC is a catalog of standard positions and proper motions for (all)
stars brighter than magnitude 7, extending from the north to south
celestial poles. Several thousand additional stars promising to yield
reasonably accurate proper motions were included in the catalog. The
objectives of the work were to provide standard positions and motions
of accuracy limited only by the character and abundance of the
observational material upon which the data were based and thus to
provide a rich supply of data to promote research in many astronomical
fields. The machine version of the GC includes both The Henry Draper
Catalogue and Durchmusterung identifications for all stars, although
the published GC contains only one or the other. The 1985 version
corrected many errors present in a previous machine version and
included probable errors for the positions and centennial proper
motions (not present in the previous version). In this version decimal
points have been aligned for all but a very few of the secular
variations and third terms. These quantities are given with the same
precision as in the printed catalog, and the coded spectral types have
been omitted. The following quantities are included in the machine but
not the published version: galactic coordinates and DM numbers. The
following data are in the published but not the machine version:
centennial increments of proper motion in right ascension and
declination, probable errors of the right ascension and declination at
1950.0, and remarks. The documentation supplied with the machine
catalog gives a byte-by-byte format description, indigenous catalog
characteristics, code explanation tables, and changes incorporated to
produce this and previous Astronomical Data Center versions.
File Summary:
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FileName Lrecl Records Explanations
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ReadMe 80 . This file
adc.doc 76 536 Documentation in plain ascii by ADC
adc.sty 78 68 LaTeX style file for doc.tex
catalog.dat 150 33342 The General Catalogue
doc.tex 80 423 ADC document in LaTeX
changes.dat 41 1186 Modifications History
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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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1- 5 I5 --- GC [1/33342]+ Boss General Catalog (GC) number
7- 10 I4 0.01mag Vmag []?=9999 Visual magnitude, '9999'
indicates variability (1)
12- 15 A4 --- SpType Spectral type
16- 17 I2 h RAh Hours RA, equinox 1950.0, epoch 1950.0
18- 19 I2 min RAm Minutes RA, equinox 1950.0, epoch 1950.0
20- 25 F6.3 s RAs Seconds RA, equinox 1950.0, epoch 1950.0
26- 29 F4.1 a EpRA Mean epoch of RA observations (4)
30- 36 F7.4 s/a AvarRA Annual variation of precession in RA (3)
37- 44 F8.4 0.1ms/a2 SvarRA Secular variation in precession in RA (3)
45- 52 F8.3 us/a3 Term3RA Third term in precession in RA (3)
53- 58 F6.4 s/a pmRA Proper motion in RA
59 A1 --- DE- Sign Dec, equinox 1950.0
60- 61 I2 deg DEd Degrees Dec, equinox 1950.0, epoch 1950.0
62- 63 I2 arcmin DEm Minutes Dec, equinox 1950.0, epoch 1950.0
64- 68 F5.2 arcsec DEs Seconds Dec, equinox 1950.0, epoch 1950.0
69- 72 F4.1 a EpDE Mean epoch of DE observations (4)
73- 79 F7.3 arcsec/a AvarDE Annual variation of precession in DE (3)
80- 86 F7.3 0.1mas/a2 SvarDE Secular variation in precession in DE (3)
87- 93 F7.2 uarcsec/a3 Term3DE Third term in precession in DE (3)
94- 99 F6.3 arcsec/a pmDE Proper motion in Dec
100 A1 --- Remark [0-9±] Coded remarks (2)
101-113 A13 --- DM Durchmusterung designation:
catalog in bytes 101-102: 'BD', 'CD', 'CP'
catalog number in bytes 103-110: SZZNNNNN
component identification in bytes 111-112
BD supplement letter in byte 113
114-120 F7.3 deg GLON Galactic longitude
121-127 F7.3 deg GLAT Galactic latitude
128-133 I6 --- HD [1/359083]? Henry Draper Catalog (HD) number
134 I1 --- m_HD [0/9]? HD component/multiple code (5)
135-138 F4.3 arcsec e_RA Probable error in RA at epoch
139-142 F4.2 10mas/a e_pmRA Probable error in RA proper motion
143-146 F4.3 arcsec e_DE Probable error in DE at epoch
147-150 F4.2 10mas/a e_pmDE Probable error in DE proper motion
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Note (1): All magnitudes are given to two decimal places in the
computer-readable version. Magnitudes underlined in the published
version of the catalog are not indicated on the computer-readable
version.
Note (2): Remarks are defined as follows:
0 = No remark given
1 = Spectrum given
2 = Aitken or Innes number given
3 = Aitken or Innes number given with each component having
a separate GC number
4 = Other information given
5 = 1+2
6 = 1+3
7 = 1+4
8 = 2+4
9 = 3+4
- = 1+2+4
+ = 1+3+4
Note (3): The number of decimals can be smaller for positions
close to one of the poles (see document)
Note (4): The first two digits of the year are omitted.
Thus 98.8 should be read 1898.8 and 05.3 should be read 1905.3.
Note (5): The HD component code takes the following values:
0 for single stars or brighter components of doubles with
difference in visual magnitude > 0.3mag.
1 designates the brighter component, not necessarily A, for
doubles with difference in visual magnitude ≤ 0.3mag
2 designates the fainter component, not necessarily B, for
doubles with difference in visual magnitude ≤ 0.3mag
9 indicates that two successive HD numbers (HD and HD+1) refer
to the same SAO star.
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Byte-per-byte Description of file: changes.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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2- 6 I5 --- GC Boss General Catalog (GC) number
10- 15 A6 --- Field Field Changed
18- 25 A8 --- Printed Old Value
29- 41 A13 --- New Current Value
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Historical Notes:
* See section 4 "Remarks and Modifications" in the document file
(adc.doc or doc.tex), and the list of modifications in file "changes"
* A previous version is on the "Selected Astronomical Catalogs" Vol. 1
CD-ROM (October 1991), directory /astrom/gc
* This standardized "ReadMe" document file was written in October 1995
at CDS (Francois Ochsenbein), using the ADC documentation written
by Nancy G. Roman and Wayne H. Warren Jr.
(End) Francois Ochsenbein [CDS] 13-Oct-1995