HDEC - Henry Draper Extension Charts Catalog

Overview

The Henry Draper (HD) Catalog (Cannon and Pickering 1918 - 1924, Ann. Astron. Obs. Harvard College 91 - 99) and its first extension, the Henry Draper Extension (HDE) Catalog (Cannon 1934, Ann. Astron. Obs. Harvard College 100, 1 - 6), provided spectral classification and rough positions for 272,150 stars and has been widely made use of by the astronomical community for over half a century. A second extension of the HD Catalog, the so-called Henry Draper Extension Charts (HDEC), subsequently extended this spectral classification to fainter magnitudes (Cannon 1937, Ann. Astron. Obs. Harvard College 105, 1; Cannon and Mayall 1949, Ann. Astron. Obs. Harvard College 112), thus adding nearly another 87,000 stars with derived spectral types. The information in the HDEC was published in the form of charts rather than tables like the HD and HDE Catalogs, and consequently has been barely utiized by modern astronomers. In the 1990's, after a pilot project of Roeser et al. (1991, Astr. Ap. Suppl., 88, 277) had demonstrated that it seemed feasible to `revive' the HDEC data, they were converted into a catalog of accurate astrometric parameters along with magnitudes and spectral types by Nesterov et al. (1995, Astr. Ap. Suppl., 110, 367), who used measurements of Cartesian coordinates of stars in the charts and the positions in the Astrographic Catalog (AC) for subsequent cross-identification. The Nesterov et al. (1991) reference should be consulted for the full details on the procedures used to create this HDEC catalog.

The HDEC catalog contains information on 86,933 stars, comprising accurate (0.5 arcseconds error) positions, (for more than 96 per cent of them) proper motions with a typical accuracy of 5.5 milliarcseconds (mas) per year, and the original spectral classifications. The current database contains the main portion of the catalog. An additional set of information, primarily comprising HD entries with cross-identifications with known or suspected variable stars, was included in the A.J. Cannon Memorial Volume (Cannon and Mayall 1949). This list was extended by Nesterov et al. (1991) to more than 500 identifications with variable stars. This latter expanded list, together with a list of entries which have uncertain identifications, is not included in the HEASARC version of this catalog, but it is available on the HEASARC website in the directory /FTP/heasarc/dbase/misc_files/hdec/ as the file hdec.remarks. If the parameter "remarks" is set to "R" for an entry in the HDEC catalog, this means that there is a remark about that particular star in the above file.

Catalog Bibcode

1995A&AS..110..367N

References

Cannon A.J., Mayall M.W., 1949, Ann. Harv. Coll. Obs. 112 Nesterov V.V., Kuzmin, A.V., Ashimbaeva N.T., Volchkov A.A., Roeser, S., and Bastian U. 1995, Astr. Ap. Suppl., 110, 367.

Provenance

This database was created by the HEASARC in April 1998 based on the machine-readable ADC/CDS Catalog III/182.

Parameters

Name
The name of the star, constructed by concatenating the prefix "HD", the HD number, and the component identification (if any). Notice that the IAU Dictionary of Astronomical Nomenclature recommends the prefix HD rather than HDE for stars in the HDEC.

HD
The HD number of the star: notice that stars in the HDEC have HD numbers in the range [272151/359083] inclusive.

RA
The right ascension of the star. For those stars for which proper motions were known, the epoch of the position is J2000.0. If the star was identified with either an AC or a GSC star (i.e., there is no known proper motion), the position is given at the corresponding epoch of observation (specified by the parameter observing_epoch). The modern-epoch positions have a typical accuracy of 0.45 arcseconds.

Dec
The declination of the star. For those stars for which proper motions were known, the epoch of the position is J2000.0. If the star was identified with either an AC or a GSC star (i.e., there is no known proper motion), the position is given at the corresponding epoch of observation (specified by the parameter observing_epoch). The modern-epoch positions have a typical accuracy of 0.45 arcseconds.

LII
The galactic longitude of the star.

BII
The galactic latitude of the star.

Component
The component identification for multiple systems using the usual notation A, B, C, D, E, F. Notice that stars in multiple systems are given the same HD number.

Remarks
This parameter is set to "R" if there is an individual remark for this star given in the 'remarks' file. This latter file is not part of the current database but can be obtained from the HEASARC website in the directory /FTP/heasarc/dbase/misc_files/hdec/ as the file hdec.remarks.

Spect_Type
The HD spectral class of the star.

App_Mag
The apparent magnitude of the star: this is the photographic B-magnitude taken from the Astrographic Catalog (AC) (for those entries having the parameter position_source = "P", "A" or "C"), or the Guide Star Catalog J or V magnitude (for those entries having the parameter position_source = "G"). The typical accuracy of these magnitudes is 0.3 mag.

Position_Source
A flag referring to the catalog from which the star position was obtained: "P" = the PPM Star Catalog, "C" = the Guide Star and Astrographic Catalogs (GSC-AC), "A" = the Astrographic Catalog (AC), "G" = the Guide Star Catalog (GSC), "M" means that no identification with any of teh above-listed catalogs was possible, and that the position given is a reduced measured one, and "V" means that the position was taken from either the General Catalog of Variable Stars (GCVS) or the Catalog of Suspected Variable Stars (CSVS).

Proper_Motion_Flag
A flag that is set to "T" if proper motions are given, but set to "F" if only a position at a single epoch is known.

Proper_Motion_RA
The annual proper motion in RA, in units of arcseconds per year. The typical rms error of the total proper motion is 5.5 mas per year.

Proper_Motion_Dec
The annual proper motion in Dec, in units of arcseconds per year. The typical rms error of the total proper motion is 5.5 mas per year.

Observing_Epoch
For those stars for which only a single observation is available, this parameter contains the observation epoch in Julian years.

Class
The Browse classification of the star, derived from its listed spectral type.

Contact Person

Questions regarding the HDEC database table can be addressed to the HEASARC Help Desk.

Page Author: Browse Software Development Team
Last Modified: Monday, 16-Sep-2024 17:28:39 EDT