The Burnham Double Star Catalogue (BDS) is a catalogue of double stars within 121° of the celestial North Pole. It was published in two parts by the Carnegie Institution of Washington in 1906, under the title A General Catalogue of Double Stars Within 121° of the North Pole. The first part gives coordinates, designations, and magnitudes for 13,665 pairs of double stars, comprising almost all double stars discovered before 1906. [1] [2] The second part contains measures, notes, and references to publications for each pair. Its publication was a stimulus to double star observation. [2]
The BDS was compiled by Sherburne Wesley Burnham, who worked on it sporadically for 36 years, starting in 1870. He first submitted it to the Smithsonian Institution, but it was rejected. In 1874, it was scheduled to be printed at the United States Naval Observatory, but the typesetting was interrupted midway and the type destroyed. In 1886 the Smithsonian changed its mind and offered to publish it, but Burnham had become discouraged and did not accept the offer. [3] Burnham worked at Lick Observatory for four years starting in 1888. [4] After leaving in 1892, he revised the manuscript of his catalog for five years; the Carnegie Institute published it nine years later. [3]
By the time Burnham retired from Yerkes Observatory, he had accumulated material for a revision of his catalogue. This eventually formed part of the 1932 Aitken Double Star Catalogue (ADS), the successor to the BDS. [2]
Robert Grant Aitken was an American astronomer.
Sherburne Wesley Burnham was an American astronomer.
Alpha Andromedae, officially named Alpheratz, is 97 light-years from the Sun and is the brightest star in the constellation of Andromeda when Beta Andromedae undergoes its periodical dimming. Immediately northeast of the constellation of Pegasus, it is the upper left star of the Great Square of Pegasus.
The Washington Double Star Catalog, or WDS, is a catalog of double stars, maintained at the United States Naval Observatory. The catalog contains positions, magnitudes, proper motions and spectral types and has entries for 141,743 pairs of double stars. The catalog also includes multiple stars. In general, a multiple star with n components will be represented by entries in the catalog for n-1 pairs of stars.
Tau Tauri, Latinized from τ Tauri, is a quadruple star system in the constellation Taurus. It is visible to the naked eye as a faint point of light with a combined apparent visual magnitude of 4.33. The distance to this system is approximately about 400 light years based on parallax. The system is moving further from the Earth with a heliocentric radial velocity of +14.6 km/s, and it is a member of the Taurion OB association, located between Orion and Taurus. It is located 0.7 degree north of the ecliptic, and thus is subject to lunar occultations.
Beta Delphini is a binary star in the constellation of Delphinus. It is the brightest star in Delphinus.
2 Andromedae, abbreviated 2 And, is a binary star system in the northern constellation of Andromeda. 2 Andromedae is the Flamsteed designation. It is a faint star system but visible to the naked eye with a combined apparent visual magnitude of 5.09. Based upon an annual parallax shift of 7.7 mas, it is located 420 light years away. The binary nature of the star was discovered by American astronomer Sherburne Wesley Burnham at Lick Observatory in 1889. The pair orbit each other over a period of 74 years with a high eccentricity of 0.8.
834 Burnhamia is a large background asteroid, approximately 61 kilometers in diameter, that is located in the outer region of the asteroid belt. It was discovered on 20 September 1916, by German astronomer Max Wolf at the Heidelberg Observatory in southwest Germany. The X-type asteroid (GS) has a rotation period of 13.9 hours. It was named after American astronomer Sherburne Wesley Burnham (1838–1921).
Mira B, also known as VZ Ceti, is the companion star to the variable star Mira, separated by around 100 AU. Suspected as early as 1918, it was visually confirmed in 1923 by Robert Grant Aitken, and has been observed more or less continually since then, most recently by the Chandra X-Ray Observatory.
In astronomy, Durchmusterung or Bonner Durchmusterung (BD) is an astrometric star catalogue of the whole sky, compiled by the Bonn Observatory in Germany from 1859 to 1903. The name comes from Durchmusterung, a German word used for a systematic survey of objects or data. The term has sometimes been used for other astronomical surveys, including not only stars, but also the search for other celestial objects. Special tasks include celestial scanning in electromagnetic wavelengths shorter or longer than visible light waves.
The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory Star Catalog is an astrometric star catalogue, created by Smithsonian Institution, a research institute. It was published by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in 1966 and contains 258,997 stars. The catalogue was compiled from various previous astrometric catalogues, and contains only stars to about ninth magnitude for which accurate proper motions were known. Names in the SAO catalogue start with the letters SAO, followed by a number. The numbers are assigned following 18 ten-degree bands of declination, with stars sorted by right ascension within each band.
The Aitken Double Star Catalogue, or ADS, is a star catalogue of double stars. It was compiled by Robert Grant Aitken and published in 1932 in two volumes, under the name New general catalogue of double stars within 120° of the North Pole. It contains measurements of 17,180 double stars north of declination −30°. Entries in this catalogue are generally referred to by an index number prefixed with the letters ADS.
Benjamin Boss was an American astronomer. He served as the director of both the Dudley Observatory in Schenectady, New York and the Department of Meridian Astrometry of the Carnegie Institution of Washington.
The Index Catalogue of Visual Double Stars, or IDS, is a catalog of double stars. It was published by Lick Observatory in 1963 and contains measurements for 64,250 objects, covering the entire sky. The database used to construct this catalog was later transferred from Lick Observatory to the United States Naval Observatory, where it became the basis for the Washington Double Star Catalog.
1 Geminorum is a star in the constellation Gemini. Its apparent magnitude is 4.15.
Rho Hydrae, equally written ρ Hydrae, is a binary star in the equatorial constellation of Hydra. It is visible to the naked eye with an apparent visual magnitude of 4.34. The distance to this system, based upon an annual parallax shift of 9.21 mas, is about 354 light years. At that distance, the visual magnitude is diminished by an interstellar extinction of 0.06 magnitudes, due to intervening dust.
NV Puppis, also known as υ1 Puppis, is a class B2V star in the constellation Puppis. Its apparent magnitude is 4.67 and it is approximately 800 light years away based on parallax.
KU Hydrae is a binary star in the constellation Hydra. The primary star is an Alpha2 Canum Venaticorum variable with its apparent magnitude varying from 0.05 magnitudes over a period of 33.97 days.
ADS 1359 is a quadruple star system in the constellation Cassiopeia. It is composed of two sun like stars in an eclipsing binary with a 2.5-day period, which is in turn orbited by an A-type main-sequence star with a 185-year orbital period. There is also HD 236848 which is a distant proper motion companion.