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Third Catalog of Interferometric Measurements of Binary Stars William I. Hartkopf U.S. Naval Observatory, Washington, DC Harold A. McAlister Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA Brian D. Mason U.S. Naval Observatory, Washington, DC CHARA Contribution No. 4 (v2001.0) Notice: The Third Catalog of Interferometric Measurements of Binary Stars, containing data published through 1 January 2001, is one of four USNO double star catalogs recently written to CD-ROM. Copies of this CD-ROM are available upon request. Although still available on the web as well, the Third Catalog has been supplanted by the Fourth Catalog, so will no longer be updated. The following description is adapted from a paper by Hartkopf et al. (2001, AJ, 122, 3480.) The Third Catalog of Interferometric Measurements of Binary Stars includes all published measures of binary and multiple star systems obtained by high-resolution techniques (speckle interferometry, photoelectric occultation timings, etc.), as well as negative examinations for duplicity, as of 1 January 2001. This catalog is one of four USNO double star catalogs to be included on a CD-ROM now in preparation. A brief summary and statistical analysis of the contents of the catalog are presented. Introduction The Third Catalog of Interferometric Measurements of Binary Stars began in 1982 as an internal database at the Georgia State University Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy (CHARA), tabulating binary star observations made using the technique of speckle interferometry by that group's speckle camera. The Speckle Catalog soon grew to encompass other published speckle efforts, then all published astrometric and photometric data for binary stars (and single stars observed in duplicity surveys) obtained by other high angular resolution techniques, as well (lunar occultations, adaptive optics, eyepiece interferometry, Hipparcos, etc.). This extended the catalog's baseline of observations back by nearly a century, to the efforts of Schwarzschild & Villiger (1896). Two printed editions were published in the 1980's (McAlister & Hartkopf 1984, 1988), and a Web version has been available since the early 1990's (Hartkopf et al. 2001). After the speckle efforts at CHARA were suspended in the late 1990's (in order to devote more resources to their long-baseline interferometry project) one of the authors (WIH) transferred the catalog (still called the Speckle Catalog in honor of its origins) to the U.S. Naval Observatory, whose own speckle efforts had begun earlier in the decade. Catalog Description Tables 1 and 2 summarize the contents of the catalog as of 1 January 2001. In addition to the astrometric totals presented in the table, the catalog includes 9,425 observations of photometric data only. The Third Speckle Catalog is over 14 times the size of the First Catalog and six times the size of the Second. Figures 1 - 3 illustrate the distribution of catalog data with time, separation, and declination, respectively. The catalog is divided into 24 one-hour right ascension bands, as follows: 00 hrs ... 01 hrs ... 02 hrs ... 03 hrs ... 04 hrs ... 05 hrs ... 06 hrs ... 07 hrs 08 hrs ... 09 hrs ... 10 hrs ... 11 hrs ... 12 hrs ... 13 hrs ... 14 hrs ... 15 hrs 16 hrs ... 17 hrs ... 18 hrs ... 19 hrs ... 20 hrs ... 21 hrs ... 22 hrs ... 23 hrs Entries for each system are comprised of two parts: an identification line containing designations from various catalogs, followed by individual measures sorted in order of observation date (see the format file). Each observation includes a reference code linked to a reference file. Similarly, systems having notes are flagged with links to a notes file. The Web version of the Speckle Catalog is updated on a regular basis. For convenience, however, this catalog, together with three other USNO double star catalogs, has been copied to CD-ROM using a publication cutoff date of 1 January 2001. Copies of this CD-ROM are available free of charge from the authors. Updates to this CD-ROM will be forthcoming every few years. Your comments regarding either style or substance are welcome. Please report any errors you run across in the catalog to dsl@ad.usno.navy.mil. References Anderson, J.A. 1920, ApJ 51, 263 Hartkopf, W.I., Mason, B.D., McAlister, H.A., Turner, N.H., Barry, D.J., Franz, O.G., & Prieto, C.M. 1996 AJ, 111, 936 Hartkopf, W.I., McAlister, H.A. & Mason, B.D. 2001, Third Catalog of Interferometric Measurements of Binary Stars, CHARA Contrib. No. 4, http://www.ad.usno.navy.mil/wds/int3.html Horch, E.P., Franz, O.G., & Ninkov, Z. 2000, AJ 120, 2638 McAlister, H.A. & Hartkopf, W.I. 1984, Catalog of Interferometric Measurements of Binary Stars, CHARA Contrib. No. 1 McAlister, H.A. & Hartkopf, W.I. 1988, Second Catalog of Interferometric Measurements of Binary Stars, CHARA Contrib. No. 2 Merrill, P.W. 1922, ApJ 56, 40 Schwarzschild, K. & Villiger, W. 1896, Astr. Nach. 139, 353 Return to Double Star Library home page Return to USNO Astrometry home page