The Washington Double Star Catalog, or WDS, is a catalog of

double star In observational astronomy, a double star or visual double is a pair of stars that appear close to each other as viewed from Earth, especially with the aid of optical telescopes. This occurs because the pair either forms a binary star (i.e. a bi ...

s, maintained at the

United States Naval Observatory United States Naval Observatory (USNO) is a scientific and military facility that produces geopositioning, navigation and timekeeping data for the United States Navy and the United States Department of Defense. Established in 1830 as the Depo ...

. The catalog contains positions,

magnitude Magnitude may refer to: Mathematics *Euclidean vector, a quantity defined by both its magnitude and its direction *Magnitude (mathematics), the relative size of an object *Norm (mathematics), a term for the size or length of a vector *Order of ...

proper motion Proper motion is the astrometric measure of the observed changes in the apparent places of stars or other celestial objects in the sky, as seen from the center of mass of the Solar System, compared to the abstract background of the more distan ...

s and

spectral type In astronomy, stellar classification is the classification of stars based on their spectral characteristics. Electromagnetic radiation from the star is analyzed by splitting it with a prism or diffraction grating into a spectrum exhibiting the ...

s and has entries for (as of June 2017) 141,743 pairs of double stars. The catalog also includes

multiple star A star system or stellar system is a small number of stars that orbit each other, bound by gravitational attraction. A large group of stars bound by gravitation is generally called a ''star cluster'' or ''galaxy'', although, broadly speaking, ...

s. In general, a multiple star with ''n'' components will be represented by entries in the catalog for ''n-1'' pairs of stars.

History

The database used to construct the WDS originated at

Lick Observatory The Lick Observatory is an astronomical observatory owned and operated by the University of California. It is on the summit of Mount Hamilton, in the Diablo Range just east of San Jose, California, United States. The observatory is managed by t ...

, where it was used to construct the Index Catalog of Visual Double Stars, published in 1963. In 1965, under the initiative of Charles Worley, it was transferred to the Naval Observatory. The catalog has since been augmented by many measurements, mainly from the Hipparcos and Tycho catalogues and results from

speckle interferometry Speckle imaging describes a range of high-resolution astronomical imaging techniques based on the analysis of large numbers of short exposures that freeze the variation of atmospheric turbulence. They can be divided into the shift-and-add ("'' ...

, as well as other sources. A unique 1–3 letter discovery code is used to identify the observer who reported the information. For example, HEI is used for the German astronomer W. D. Heintz.

References

{{reflist

External links

The WDS at the US Naval Observatory

The Washington Double Star Catalog
at

VizieR A vizier (; ar, وزير, wazīr; fa, وزیر, vazīr), or wazir, is a high-ranking political advisor or minister in the near east. The Abbasid caliphs gave the title ''wazir'' to a minister formerly called '' katib'' (secretary), who was ...

StelleDoppie
interface to the WDS Astronomical catalogues of stars Double stars

History

See also

References

External links