I/143 Fourth Fundamental Cat and Suppl (FK4, FK4S) (Fricke+ 1963)

Fourth Fundamental Catalogue and Supplement

Fricke W., Kopff A.

<Veroeff. Astron. Rechen-Inst., Heidelb., No. 10, 11 (1963)>

Description:

The FK4 was an attempt to establish a fundamental system of stellar positions and proper motions for the 1950 equinox using as much position data as were available. Most of the stars are brighter than 7.0 mag. To increase the star density in some regions of the sky, positions and proper motions for additional stars were established on the same system. This catalog contains seven data files, six for different equinoxes (1950, 1955, 1960, 1965, 1970, and 1975) and one for the supplemental stars. The 1950 and 1975 files contain the complete FK4 catalog (1535 stars); the others contain only 52 polar stars.

In addition to a header record, the primary catalog contains for each star an identification number; the magnitude (maximum for a variable star); a variability flag, the minimum magnitude for a variable or the magnitude of the secondary for a double star; the HD spectral type and the type for the companion or a second type for a variable star; the position and the change and acceleration of the position; the proper motion and its change with time; the mean epoch of the observations for both right ascension and declination; the standard deviations of the position and proper motion; the numbers of the star in the Boss General Catalog, the N30 catalog, and in the Durchmusterungs; and the parallax. The supplement has a flag to indicate duplicity but no information about variability or the second component. It has no information about the temporal change of the position and proper motion and does not list the N30 and Durchmusterung numbers. It also omits the mean epoch for the observations.

File Summary:

See also:

I/149 : Fifth Fundamental Catalogue (FK5) Part I (Fricke+, 1988)

I/175 : Fifth Fundamental Catalogue (FK5) Extension (Fricke+ 1991)

Byte-by-byte Description of file: fk4_19*.dat

Note (1):

If a range of magnitudes is given in the book, this contains '-' in 10 and the fainter mag. in 11-12 (F2.1). Similarly, if both components of a double star are catalogued, byte 10 contains '+' and the magnitude of the secondary is in 15-17 (F3.2). Normally 14-17 are blank.

Note (2):

If both components of a double star are catalogued, byte 23 contains '+' and 24-26 contain the HD spectral type for the secondary. If the entry is for a single star whose spectrum varies, byte 23 contains '-' and 24-26 contain the second spectral type. Normally 23-26 are blank.

Note (3):

The first two digits of the year are omitted. (E.g. 1908.22 = 0822)

Note (4):

Durchmusterung number has form DMSZZNNNNN, where DM='BD', 'CD' or 'CP', and S='+' or '-'. E.g. 'BD+28 4'

Byte-by-byte Description of file: fk4_supp.dat

Note (1):

Byte 22 is the prefix (blank except for #3505, which is 'c'); 23 is the class; 24 is the subclass; and 25 is the suffix (usually blank, but may be 'p' or 'e'). Two stars have type ' Oe5'.

Historical Notes:

The original machine-readable catalog consisted of seven files broken down by left and right pages for 1950 and 1975, left and right pages for the circumpolar stars, and a file for the supplement. The catalog was supplied to W. M. Owen, Jr. of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in January of 1989. Modifications to the data and format were made at JPL to correct miscellaneous errors, convert old BCD coding to ASCII representation, add Durchmusterung numbers and trigonometric parallaxes, and combine the left and right pages to single files containing one logical record per object in a uniform format. The revised catalog was then returned to the ADC at NASA GSFC, where the descriptive file (also prepared mostly at JPL) was modified. (The logical record length of the Supplement file was changed from 80 bytes to 55 bytes per record at the ADC because bytes 56-80 were blank.) The revised catalog was then archived permanently.

* on ADC CD-ROM Volume 1 (October 1991), directory /astrom/fk4

* 24-Jul-1997: Added standardized ReadMe.

(End) Vincent Kargatis (SSDOO/ADF) 24-Jul-1997