A development of double star astronomy after Hipparcos

Abstract

Now that the HIPPARCOS satellite safely revolves on his 'degraded' orbit - after the exploit of the ESA technicians to rescue it from the faulty ignition of its apogeum boost motor - and regularly provides the information needed for reaching the initial aim of the project, one may turn to examine the possible applications of the finalHipparcos Catalogue. In the present paper, we describe how double and multiple stars have been introduced in the Input Catalogue and what may be expected from their observation. We also try to evaluate how much the final HIPPARCOS data may influence future researches on these celestial bodies and what kind of ground-based observation programmes should be conducted in order to support the space results.