The General Catalog of Positions and Proper Motions of 6637 Bright Stars (newbs)

Abstract

New positions and proper motions for stars to a limiting magnitude of 7.9 from +90 up to -90 degrees in declination over the whole sky (NewBS) were obtained as a result of a thorough revision of observational material of the International Bright Star Program. 21 catalogs with right ascensions (alpha ) and 16 catalogs with declinations (delta ) were used to derive new positions for bright stars. The mean epoch of observation for positions in NewBS is 1968.4. The mean rms errors of positions in NewBS for the mean epoch of observation are: +/-0fs 003 sec delta for alpha and +/-0.sarcsec 08 for delta . The errors of new centennial proper motions are +/-0fs 012 sec delta and +/-0.sarcsec 19 for alpha and delta , respectively. All stars listed in the NewBS catalog will be incorporated into the HIPPARCOS catalog. We present the results of a comparison of NewBS data with those of FK5 Extension, CAMC-4, CGS and BS. External errors of the NewBS catalog with respect to FK5 catalog for the epoch of 2000.0 are: +/-0fs 005 sec delta and +/-0fs 013 sec delta for alpha and mu_ alpha and +/-0.sarcsec 11 and +/-0.sarcsec 22 for delta and mu_ delta , respectively. On the whole, smoothed systematic differences (NewBS-FK5) for both coordinates lie within +/-0.sarcsec 02. The most important (NewBS-CAMC-4) systematic differences for both coordinates are found to be dependent on declination. For right ascensions the greatest differences are found north of +75 degrees. The greatest declination differences are found within the declination zone from -30 down to -42.5 degrees. These differences agree well with the (FK5-CAMC-4) systematic differences.