How do I intelligently revise the Yale Bright Star Catalog?

Question

The Yale Bright Star Catalog was last revised in 1991. I'm thinking about making my own revision.

How would you do that? What kind of pitfalls should I avoid?

I'm especially interested in having robust data that allows one to calculate 3D proper motion:

• proper motion in right ascension and declination
• parallax
• radial velocity

GAIA Data Release 3 is interesting, but it has a bright limit of mag ~3, so it can't be the sole source of data. I'm guessing I could fill most gaps with Hipparcos data, but Hipparcos seems to lack radial velocity data, so that would have to be supplemented by another data source.

One pitfall that I've noticed is that catalogs sometimes vary for multiple star systems. That is, catalog A might treat an object as being a single star, whereas catalog B might treat it as being a multiple star system.

Answer 1

My first stop would be to check with Simbad and query for all stars with mag < 3.5. It turns out it lists radial velocity data for nearly every of the returned objects (there's a hand full of exceptions).

Take that list, weed out any duplicates with the Gaia data by fuzzily matching coordinates. For the remaining stars not found in Gaia, use the data supplied there; however take care to check the references Simbad supplies.

C.D.S.  -  SIMBAD4 rel 1.8  -  2022.03.13CET19:13:16

Vmag < 3.2
----------

Number of objects : 238

 #              identifier  typ        coord1 (ICRS,J2000/2000)                 pm             plx        radvel           Mag V           spec. type          #bib    #not
--- ----------------------- --- --------------------------------------- ------------------  ----------  -----------      ---------         ------------------      -----   ----
1   * tet Cen               PM* 14 06 40.94752 -36 22 11.8371           -520.53 -518.06     55.45       1.30             2.05          K0-IIIb          244   0
2   * del Cap               EB* 21 47 02.4442395 -16 07 38.233507        261.70 -296.70     84.27       -3.40            2.83          kA5hF0mF2III     263   0
3   * tet Aur               a2* 05 59 43.27012 +37 12 45.3047              43.63 -73.79     19.70       29.30            2.62          A0VpSi           273   0
(...)
55  * alf Ser               PM* 15 44 16.0743159 +06 25 32.263272          133.84 44.81     44.10       2.63             2.630         K2IIIbCN1        506   0
56  * gam Cen A             PM* 12 41 31.033757 -48 57 35.68434            -193.6 -11.6           ~     ~                2.82          A1IV           1   0
57  * iot UMa A             SB* 08 59 12.4531549177 +48 02 30.562298470 -439.836 -214.071   68.0010     9.0              3.13          A7V(n)           253   0
58  * alf UMa A             PM* 11 03 43.668632 +61 45 03.72003            -136.5 -35.2           ~     ~                1.87          G9III             11   0
59  * zet Pup               BY* 08 03 35.04754 -40 00 11.3321              -29.71 16.68     3.01        -23.90           2.25          O4I(n)fp            1122   1
60  * zet CMa               Ce* 06 20 18.7920398 -30 03 48.120242             7.32 4.03     9.00        32.2             3.00          B2.5V            151   0
61  * gam Lup               El* 15 35 08.44835 -41 10 00.3247             -15.62 -25.43     7.75        2.3              2.765         B2IV         167   0
62  * eps Leo               V*  09 45 51.0733004 +23 46 27.320834          -45.61 -9.21     13.22       4.322            2.98          G1IIIa           329   0
63  * del Dra               PM* 19 12 33.3019645 +67 39 41.545581           95.74 91.92     33.48       24.818           3.07          G9III            267   0
(...)
238 * del Her               SB* 17 15 01.91058 +24 50 21.1451            -21.18 -156.48     43.41       -40.0            3.13          A1IVn            188   0
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