Study of Principal Catalogues of Visual Double Stars

Yikdem Mengesha Gebrehiwot^1*, Solomon Belay Tessema², Oleg Malkov²

¹Astronomy and Astrophysics Research Division, Entoto Observatory and Research Center (EORC), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
²Institute of Astronomy, Russian Academy Sciences, Moscow, Russia.

DOI: 10.4236/ijaa.2015.54030                

Abstract

The goal of this study is to develop a tool for detection of errors and misprints in principal catalogues of visual double stars. Modern statistical investigations of visual doubles (which are about 130 thousand, and they represent the most numerous observational type of binaries) are based almost exclusively on data, listed in those catalogues. So their correction is a challenging task, otherwise the statistics of visual binaries can be biased. Study of individual stars should also be based on correct data. We have presented tools to detect some of errors in the catalogues, especially, to indicate cases i) when positional information on components of a pair is contradictory, and ii) when a double star or its component is included in a catalogue twice, under different names.

Keywords

Visual Binary Star, Positional Inconsistency, Data Duplication, Reference Coordinates, Additional Component Coordinates

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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