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I've been observing the stars and I have found some lists on internet that sort them by its apparent magnitude (m), so you end up with lists of brightest-stars like this one: https://www.star-facts.com/brightest-stars/

The problem is that I would like to sort them beyond 300 (The maximum amount that I've found on internet sites), but I don't know where can I find (or if it even exist) such a list. The star number 300 (Xi Serpentis) has a apparent magnitude of 3.54, but there are some other stars like: Atlas (m = 3.62) that have apparent magnitudes bigger of 3.54. I would like to know what position stars like these they occupy

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The Yale Bright Star Catalogue lists stars brighter than about magnitude 6.5.

It is available as a compressed text file documented in the readme file

I've also made a google sheets version sorted by magnitude

A sample of the first 10 lines

   1          BD+44 4550      3 36042          46           000001.1+444022000509.9+451345114.44-16.88 6.70  +0.07 +0.08         A1Vn               -0.012-0.018      -018      195  4.2  21.6AC   3
   2          BD-01 4525      6128569                       235956.2-010330000503.8-003011 98.33-61.14 6.29  +1.10 +1.02        gG9                 +0.045-0.060      +014V
   3 33    PscBD-06 6357     281285721002I         Var?     000013.0-061601000520.1-054227 93.75-65.93 4.61  +1.04 +0.89 +0.54   K0IIIbCN-0.5       -0.009+0.089 +.014-006SB1O < 17  2.5   0.0     3*
   4 86    PegBD+12 5063     87 917012004                   000033.8+125023000542.0+132346106.19-47.98 5.51  +0.90               G5III              +0.045-0.012      -002V?
   5          BD+57 2865    123 21085          61  V640 Cas 000101.8+575245000616.0+582612117.03-03.92 5.96  +0.67 +0.20         G5V                +0.263+0.030 +.047-012V          0.8   1.4      *
   6          CD-4914337    142214963      W                000108.4-493751000619.0-490430321.61-66.38 5.70  +0.52 +0.05         G1IV               +0.565-0.038 +.050+003SB         5.7   5.4      *
   7 10    CasBD+63 2107    144 109782005                   000114.4+633822000626.5+641146118.06  1.75 5.59  -0.03 -0.19         B9III             e+0.008 0.000      -000V     153                 *
   8          BD+28 4704    166 73743          69     33    000125.2+282811000636.8+290117111.26-32.83 6.13  +0.75 +0.33         K0V                +0.380-0.182 +.067-008V          2.6 158.6AB   4*
   9          CD-23    4    2031660531003                   000143.0-233947000650.1-230627 52.21-79.14 6.18  +0.38 +0.05         A7V                +0.100-0.045      +003V
  10          BD-18 6428    256147090                       000211.8-175639000718.2-172311 74.36-75.90 6.19  +0.14 +0.10         A6Vn               -0.018+0.036      -009V?    195                 *

There is lots of information here, the visual magnitude is in the column which begins 6.70\6.29\4.61

The entry for Atlas is

1178 27    TauBD+23  557  23850 76228 142    2786   1345    034312.8+234452034909.7+240312167.01-23.23 3.63  -0.09 -0.36 -0.05   B8III              +0.018-0.047 -.026+009SB1O  212  1.5   0.0 A   3*

Showing that it has a visual magnitude of 3.63

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  • $\begingroup$ Just out of curiosity, how many stars were in that catalogue at the time of this answer (since the question is specifically looking for more than 300 stars). $\endgroup$
    – zephyr
    Commented Aug 13, 2021 at 17:22
  • $\begingroup$ Thanks, but how do I make sense of its columns? The brightest star is Sirius in Canis Major and I don't see any information that resembles that. What are the meaning of the columns? $\endgroup$
    – Nau
    Commented Aug 13, 2021 at 18:15
  • $\begingroup$ I've added a link to the documentation tdc-www.harvard.edu/catalogs/bsc5.readme $\endgroup$
    – James K
    Commented Aug 13, 2021 at 20:35
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    $\begingroup$ Yes, Excel can import text files, the structure of the BSC is based on fixed width columns So the Catalogue number is the first four characters, the "name" is characters 5-14, the magnitude is in characters 103-107 and is a signed floating point value with optional sign and two decimal places. $\endgroup$
    – James K
    Commented Aug 14, 2021 at 12:48
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    $\begingroup$ I've made a google sheets version sorted by mag. docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/… $\endgroup$
    – James K
    Commented Aug 14, 2021 at 13:48
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It's serious overkill, but https://www.usno.navy.mil/USNO/astrometry/information/catalog-info lists many catalogs and their current recommended/usability status.

Unfortunately, it's not 100% complete as it doesn't list the Yale Bright Star Catalog or even GAIA2 (https://gea.esac.esa.int/archive/) which contains over one billion stars.

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