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UBV photoelectric catalogue: 1986-1992 data

J.-C. Mermilliod

Institut d'Astronomie de l'Université de Lausanne
51, Chemin des Maillettes
CH - 1290 Chavannes-des-Bois
Switzerland
(E-mail: mermio@scsun.unige.ch)

Abstract: The UBV photoelectric data published between 1986 and the end of 1992 have been compiled and are made available from the Strasbourg Data Center. The present supplement to the main (1986) catalogue contains 25,639 new data, found in 176 papers. This corresponds to the UBV reference numbers 1,603 to 1,784. It brings the number of stars with UBV data to more than 103,000.
Keywords: photometry UBV - catalogue

Introduction

Forty years have elapsed since the fundamental paper describing the standard stars, the first cluster observations, and the properties of the UBV system were published by Johnson and Morgan (1953). Although some justified criticisms were raised against the definition of the U filter or the original reduction procedure of the U-B index, this photometric system became a well used standard around the world. The UBV system contains the two most used quantities: the V magnitude and the B-V colour index. The previously compiled main catalogue collects the UBV photoelectric data published from 1953 to the beginning of 1986 (Mermilliod 1986a). These data were analysed for errors (Mermilliod 1986b) and a list of problems, mainly stars showing discrepant magnitudes or colour indices, was published (Mermilliod 1986c). The collection of UBV data has been continued and the present note describes the compilation of the new data published between 1986 and the end of 1992. One of the important aims of this work is to provide a comprehensive list of the recent UBV data to update the content of SIMBAD. A catalogue of mean UBV values for more than 103,000 stars, covering forty years of UBV photometry (1953-1992), has been prepared and will be published by Springer-Verlag (Mermilliod &Mermilliod 1994).

Content

Data sources

As previously done, the UBV data were looked for in all astronomical periodicals available at the Geneva Observatory library, which receives most journals. Small lists were entered in the computer at the Institute, while larger ones were usually asked for in computer-readable form, mainly through E-mail or anonymous ftp. The recent facilities to retrieve data offered either by Astronomy &Astrophysics in collaboration with the Strasbourg Data Center (by anonymous ftp) or the tables put on the AAS CD-ROM provide another easy way to get the newly published data.

File content

The structure and format of the supplement file are identical to those of the main catalogue. Each record contains the code identification, remarks on double star components and variability, the V magnitude, the B-V and U-B colour indices, the number of measurements and the reference. 25,639 new data have been found in 176 papers. These data have been compared to those already contained in the main catalogue to look for typing errors, discrepant data, or wrong identifications. The errors found have been corrected. Table 1 presents the content of this UBV (1986-1992) supplement catalogue. It gives for each reference the number of stars published, which goes from 1 to 2,083. Table 2 lists the 30 first records of the Supplement.

Star identification

We have continued to use the code numbering system designed by Mermilliod (1978) to identify the stars. An updated definition table is available together with the UBV file. This system is merely a way to get purely numerical identificators which facilitate the maintenance of computer-readable catalogues. The main difficulty is always to record each star under a unique identification. Hence the main contribution of this compilation is the effort made to clarify the identifications used in the literature. The availability of more coordinates makes it now possible to find more easily the objects that may have different names, but the same coordinates, in the range of magnitudes beyond the limit of the usual astronomical catalogues or SIMBAD database. The same policy has been used as before (Mermilliod 1986a) to include field- and cluster stars in the UBV data catalogue. Cross-reference tables and other in formation for stars in open clusters are collected in a database (Mermilliod 1988, 1992) and can be obtained from the author.

Acknowledgements

It is a pleasure to thank all colleagues who have made this work easier by kindly sending their UBV data by E-mail. This realisation has been supported by a continuous grant from the Swiss National Foundation for Scientific Research (FNRS).

This catalogue is available at the CDS under reference II/193/.

Table 1: Number of stars in each reference

Table 2 : First records of the Supplement


--------------------------------------------------
   Ident        V      B-V    U-B   nb.meas. ref.
--------------------------------------------------
 -405109323   11.20   +0.32  -0.80     2    01649
 -206007777   10.55   +0.91  +0.64     1    01696
 -205800540   11.23   +0.76  +0.27     2    01696
 -008400262   10.28   +0.337      /    1    01705
 -008400047    9.60   +0.44  -0.04     1    01730
 -008300555   11.314  +0.38  +0.206    2    01730
 -008300553    9.176  +0.663 +0.198    2    01730
 -008300018    9.62   +0.71  +0.18     1    01696
 -008300016    8.428  +1.630 +1.639   10    01704
 -008200743   10.78   +0.50  -0.15     2    01696
 -008100382   10.46   +0.79  +0.45     2    01696
 -008000349   10.15   +0.587      /    1    01705
 -008000217    8.434  +1.030 +0.822    3    01704
 -008000006   10.508  +0.469 -0.001    3    01730
 -007900646    9.920  +1.23  +0.91     2    01730
 -007900644    9.618  +1.154 +0.75     2    01730
 -007900640    8.994  +1.434 +1.44     2    01730
 -007801119   10.26   +0.68   0.00     2    01696
 -007700542   11.16   +0.61  -0.03     2    01696
 -007600656   10.08   +1.58  +1.68     1    01763
 -007600647    9.55   +1.66  +1.53    30    01763
 -007600246   10.55   +0.57   0.00     2    01696
 -007600052   10.46   +0.93  +0.69     1    01696
 -007500719    9.54   +1.32  +0.98    24    01763
 -007500713   10.53   +0.72  +0.50     2    01633
 -007500273    9.958  +1.054 +0.918    2    01730
 -007500272    9.252  +1.130 +0.972    2    01730
 -007500215   10.05   +0.61  +0.05     1    01696
 -007500012   11.338  +0.465 +0.038    2    01730
 -007400548   10.208  +1.036 +0.86     2    01730
  .......
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