Henry Draper Catalogue
Encyclopedia
The Henry Draper Catalogue (HD) is an astronomical star catalogue
published between 1918 and 1924, giving spectroscopic classifications
for 225,300 stars; it was later expanded by the Henry Draper Extension (HDE), published between 1925 and 1936, which gave classifications for 46,850 more stars, and by the Henry Draper Extension Charts (HDEC), published from 1937 to 1949 in the form of charts, which gave classifications for 86,933 more stars. In all, 359,083 stars were classified. The original HD catalogue covers the entire sky almost completely down to an apparent photographic magnitude
of about 9; the extensions added fainter stars in certain areas of the sky. The construction of the Henry Draper Catalogue was part of a pioneering effort to classify stellar spectra, and its catalogue numbers are commonly used as a way of identifying stars.
made the first photograph of a star's spectrum
showing distinct spectral lines when he photographed Vega
in 1872. He took over a hundred more photographs of stellar spectra before his death in 1882. In 1885, Edward Pickering
began to supervise photographic spectroscopy at Harvard College Observatory
, using the objective prism method. In 1886, Draper's widow, Mary Anne Palmer Draper, became interested in Pickering's research and agreed to fund it under the name Henry Draper Memorial. Pickering and his coworkers then began to take an objective-prism survey of the sky and to classify the resulting spectra.
A first result of this work was the Draper Catalogue of Stellar Spectra, published in 1890. This catalogue contained spectroscopic classifications for 10,351 stars, mostly north of declination −25°. Most of the classification was done by Williamina Fleming
. The classification scheme used was to subdivide the previously used Secchi classes (I to IV) into more specific classes, given letters from A to N. Also, the letter O was used for stars whose spectra consisted mainly of bright lines, the letter P for planetary nebulae, and the letter Q for spectra not fitting into any of the classes A through P. No star of type N appeared in the catalogue, and the only star of type O was the Wolf-Rayet star
HR 2583.
Antonia Maury
and Pickering published a more detailed study of the spectra of bright stars in the northern hemisphere in 1897. Maury used classifications numbered from I to XXII; groups I to XX corresponded to subdivisions of the Draper Catalogue types B, A, F, G, K, and M, while XXI and XXII corresponded to the Draper Catalogue types N and O. She was the first to place B stars in their current position, prior to A stars, in the spectral classification.
In 1890, the Harvard College Observatory constructed an observation station in Arequipa
, Peru
in order to study the sky in the Southern Hemisphere
, and a study of bright stars in the southern hemisphere was published by Annie Jump Cannon
and Pickering in 1901. Cannon used the lettered types of the Draper Catalogue of Stellar Spectra, but dropped all letters except O, B, A, F, G, K, and M, used in that order, as well as P for planetary nebulae and Q for some peculiar spectra. She also used types such as B5A for stars halfway between types B and A, F2G for stars one-fifth of the way from F to G, and so forth.
Between 1910 and 1915, new discoveries increased interest in stellar classification, and work on the Henry Draper Catalogue itself started in 1911. From 1912 to 1915, Cannon and her coworkers classified spectra at the rate of approximately 5,000 per month. The catalogue was published in 9 volumes of the Annals of Harvard College Observatory between 1918 and 1924. It contains rough positions, magnitudes, spectral classifications, and, where possible, cross-references to the Durchmusterung
catalogs for 225,300 stars. The classification scheme used was similar to that used in Cannon's 1901 work, except that types such as B, A, B5A, F2G, and so on, had been changed to B0, A0, B5, F2, and so on. As well as the classes O through M, P was used for nebulae and R and N for carbon star
s.
Pickering died on February 3, 1919, leaving 6 volumes to be overseen by Cannon. Cannon found spectral classifications for 46,850 fainter stars in selected regions of the sky in the Henry Draper Extension, published in six parts between 1925 and 1936. She continued classifying stars until her death in 1941. Most of these classifications were published in 1949 in the Henry Draper Extension Charts (the first portion of these charts was published in 1937.) These charts also contained some classifications by Margaret Walton Mayall, who supervised the work after Cannon's death.
The catalogue and its extensions were the first large-scale attempt to catalogue spectral types of stars, and its construction led to the Harvard classification scheme of stellar spectra which is still used today.
, down to about 9m (about 1/15 as bright as the faintest stars visible with the naked eye). The extensions contain stars as faint as the 11th magnitude selected from certain regions of the sky. Stars in the original catalogue are numbered from 1 to 225300 (prefix HD) and are numbered in order of increasing right ascension
for the epoch
1900.0. Stars in the first extension are numbered from 225301 to 272150 (prefix HDE), and stars from the extension charts are numbered from 272151 to 359083 (prefix HDEC). However, as the numbering is continuous throughout the catalog and its extensions, the prefix HD may be used regardless as its use produces no ambiguity. Many stars are customarily identified by their HD numbers.
The Henry Draper Catalogue and the Extension were available from the NASA
Astronomical Data Center as part of their third CD-ROM
of astronomical catalogues. Currently, the Catalogue and Extension are available from the VizieR
service of the Centre de Données astronomiques
at Strasbourg
as catalogue number III/135A. Because of their format, putting the Henry Draper Extension Charts into a machine-readable format was more difficult, but this task was eventually completed by 1995 by Nesterov, Röser and their coworkers, and the Charts are now available at VizieR
as catalogue number III/182.
service of the Centre de Données astronomiques de Strasbourg
:
Star catalogue
A star catalogue, or star catalog, is an astronomical catalogue that lists stars. In astronomy, many stars are referred to simply by catalogue numbers. There are a great many different star catalogues which have been produced for different purposes over the years, and this article covers only some...
published between 1918 and 1924, giving spectroscopic classifications
Stellar classification
In astronomy, stellar classification is a classification of stars based on their spectral characteristics. The spectral class of a star is a designated class of a star describing the ionization of its chromosphere, what atomic excitations are most prominent in the light, giving an objective measure...
for 225,300 stars; it was later expanded by the Henry Draper Extension (HDE), published between 1925 and 1936, which gave classifications for 46,850 more stars, and by the Henry Draper Extension Charts (HDEC), published from 1937 to 1949 in the form of charts, which gave classifications for 86,933 more stars. In all, 359,083 stars were classified. The original HD catalogue covers the entire sky almost completely down to an apparent photographic magnitude
Photographic magnitude
Before the advent of photometers which accurately measure the brightness of astronomical objects, the apparent magnitude of an object was obtained by taking a picture of it with a camera. These images, made on photoemulsive film or plates, were more sensitive to the blue end of the visual spectrum...
of about 9; the extensions added fainter stars in certain areas of the sky. The construction of the Henry Draper Catalogue was part of a pioneering effort to classify stellar spectra, and its catalogue numbers are commonly used as a way of identifying stars.
History
The origin of the Henry Draper Catalogue goes back to the earliest photographic studies of stellar spectra. Henry DraperHenry Draper
Henry Draper was an American doctor and amateur astronomer. He is best known today as a pioneer of astrophotography.-Life and work:...
made the first photograph of a star's spectrum
Spectrum
A spectrum is a condition that is not limited to a specific set of values but can vary infinitely within a continuum. The word saw its first scientific use within the field of optics to describe the rainbow of colors in visible light when separated using a prism; it has since been applied by...
showing distinct spectral lines when he photographed Vega
Vega
Vega is the brightest star in the constellation Lyra, the fifth brightest star in the night sky and the second brightest star in the northern celestial hemisphere, after Arcturus...
in 1872. He took over a hundred more photographs of stellar spectra before his death in 1882. In 1885, Edward Pickering
Edward Charles Pickering
Edward Charles Pickering was an American astronomer and physicist, brother of William Henry Pickering.Along with Carl Vogel, Pickering discovered the first spectroscopic binary stars. He wrote Elements of Physical Manipulations .Pickering attended Boston Latin School, and received his B.S. from...
began to supervise photographic spectroscopy at Harvard College Observatory
Harvard College Observatory
The Harvard College Observatory is an institution managing a complex of buildings and multiple instruments used for astronomical research by the Harvard University Department of Astronomy. It is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, and was founded in 1839...
, using the objective prism method. In 1886, Draper's widow, Mary Anne Palmer Draper, became interested in Pickering's research and agreed to fund it under the name Henry Draper Memorial. Pickering and his coworkers then began to take an objective-prism survey of the sky and to classify the resulting spectra.
| Secchi | Draper | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| I | A, B, C, D | Hydrogen lines dominant. |
| II | E, F, G, H, I, K, L | |
| III | M | |
| IV | N | Did not appear in the catalogue. |
| — | O | Wolf-Rayet spectra with bright lines. |
| — | P | Planetary nebulae. |
| — | Q | Other spectra. |
A first result of this work was the Draper Catalogue of Stellar Spectra, published in 1890. This catalogue contained spectroscopic classifications for 10,351 stars, mostly north of declination −25°. Most of the classification was done by Williamina Fleming
Williamina Fleming
-External links:* * * * from the Astronomical Society of the Pacific- Obituaries :*...
. The classification scheme used was to subdivide the previously used Secchi classes (I to IV) into more specific classes, given letters from A to N. Also, the letter O was used for stars whose spectra consisted mainly of bright lines, the letter P for planetary nebulae, and the letter Q for spectra not fitting into any of the classes A through P. No star of type N appeared in the catalogue, and the only star of type O was the Wolf-Rayet star
Wolf-Rayet star
Wolf–Rayet stars are evolved, massive stars , which are losing mass rapidly by means of a very strong stellar wind, with speeds up to 2000 km/s...
HR 2583.
Antonia Maury
Antonia Maury
Antonia Caetana de Paiva Pereira Maury was an American astronomer who published an important early catalog of stellar spectra.-Early life:Antonia Maury was born in Cold Spring, New York...
and Pickering published a more detailed study of the spectra of bright stars in the northern hemisphere in 1897. Maury used classifications numbered from I to XXII; groups I to XX corresponded to subdivisions of the Draper Catalogue types B, A, F, G, K, and M, while XXI and XXII corresponded to the Draper Catalogue types N and O. She was the first to place B stars in their current position, prior to A stars, in the spectral classification.
In 1890, the Harvard College Observatory constructed an observation station in Arequipa
Arequipa
Arequipa is the capital city of the Arequipa Region in southern Peru. With a population of 836,859 it is the second most populous city of the country...
, Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
in order to study the sky in the Southern Hemisphere
Southern Hemisphere
The Southern Hemisphere is the part of Earth that lies south of the equator. The word hemisphere literally means 'half ball' or "half sphere"...
, and a study of bright stars in the southern hemisphere was published by Annie Jump Cannon
Annie Jump Cannon
Annie Jump Cannon was an American astronomer whose cataloging work was instrumental in the development of contemporary stellar classification. With Edward C...
and Pickering in 1901. Cannon used the lettered types of the Draper Catalogue of Stellar Spectra, but dropped all letters except O, B, A, F, G, K, and M, used in that order, as well as P for planetary nebulae and Q for some peculiar spectra. She also used types such as B5A for stars halfway between types B and A, F2G for stars one-fifth of the way from F to G, and so forth.
Between 1910 and 1915, new discoveries increased interest in stellar classification, and work on the Henry Draper Catalogue itself started in 1911. From 1912 to 1915, Cannon and her coworkers classified spectra at the rate of approximately 5,000 per month. The catalogue was published in 9 volumes of the Annals of Harvard College Observatory between 1918 and 1924. It contains rough positions, magnitudes, spectral classifications, and, where possible, cross-references to the Durchmusterung
Durchmusterung
In astronomy, Durchmusterung or Bonner Durchmusterung , is the usual name for three comprehensive astrometric star catalogues of the whole sky, processed by the Bonn Observatory from 1859 to 1903....
catalogs for 225,300 stars. The classification scheme used was similar to that used in Cannon's 1901 work, except that types such as B, A, B5A, F2G, and so on, had been changed to B0, A0, B5, F2, and so on. As well as the classes O through M, P was used for nebulae and R and N for carbon star
Carbon star
A carbon star is a late-type star similar to a red giant whose atmosphere contains more carbon than oxygen; the two elements combine in the upper layers of the star, forming carbon monoxide, which consumes all the oxygen in the atmosphere, leaving carbon atoms free to form other carbon compounds,...
s.
Pickering died on February 3, 1919, leaving 6 volumes to be overseen by Cannon. Cannon found spectral classifications for 46,850 fainter stars in selected regions of the sky in the Henry Draper Extension, published in six parts between 1925 and 1936. She continued classifying stars until her death in 1941. Most of these classifications were published in 1949 in the Henry Draper Extension Charts (the first portion of these charts was published in 1937.) These charts also contained some classifications by Margaret Walton Mayall, who supervised the work after Cannon's death.
The catalogue and its extensions were the first large-scale attempt to catalogue spectral types of stars, and its construction led to the Harvard classification scheme of stellar spectra which is still used today.
Availability and usage
Stars contained in the main portion of the catalogue are of medium magnitudeApparent magnitude
The apparent magnitude of a celestial body is a measure of its brightness as seen by an observer on Earth, adjusted to the value it would have in the absence of the atmosphere...
, down to about 9m (about 1/15 as bright as the faintest stars visible with the naked eye). The extensions contain stars as faint as the 11th magnitude selected from certain regions of the sky. Stars in the original catalogue are numbered from 1 to 225300 (prefix HD) and are numbered in order of increasing right ascension
Right ascension
Right ascension is the astronomical term for one of the two coordinates of a point on the celestial sphere when using the equatorial coordinate system. The other coordinate is the declination.-Explanation:...
for the epoch
Epoch (astronomy)
In astronomy, an epoch is a moment in time used as a reference point for some time-varying astronomical quantity, such as celestial coordinates, or elliptical orbital elements of a celestial body, where these are subject to perturbations and vary with time...
1900.0. Stars in the first extension are numbered from 225301 to 272150 (prefix HDE), and stars from the extension charts are numbered from 272151 to 359083 (prefix HDEC). However, as the numbering is continuous throughout the catalog and its extensions, the prefix HD may be used regardless as its use produces no ambiguity. Many stars are customarily identified by their HD numbers.
The Henry Draper Catalogue and the Extension were available from the NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
Astronomical Data Center as part of their third CD-ROM
CD-ROM
A CD-ROM is a pre-pressed compact disc that contains data accessible to, but not writable by, a computer for data storage and music playback. The 1985 “Yellow Book” standard developed by Sony and Philips adapted the format to hold any form of binary data....
of astronomical catalogues. Currently, the Catalogue and Extension are available from the VizieR
VizieR
The VizieR Catalogue Service is an astronomical catalog service provided by Centre de données astronomiques de Strasbourg.The origin of the ViZieR Catalogue Service dates back to 1993 as the ESA European Space Information System Catalogue Browser...
service of the Centre de Données astronomiques
Centre de Données astronomiques de Strasbourg
The Centre de données astronomiques de Strasbourg is a data hub which collects and distributes astronomical information. It was established in 1972 under the name Centre de Données Stellaires...
at Strasbourg
Strasbourg
Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in eastern France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin département. The city and the region of Alsace are historically German-speaking,...
as catalogue number III/135A. Because of their format, putting the Henry Draper Extension Charts into a machine-readable format was more difficult, but this task was eventually completed by 1995 by Nesterov, Röser and their coworkers, and the Charts are now available at VizieR
VizieR
The VizieR Catalogue Service is an astronomical catalog service provided by Centre de données astronomiques de Strasbourg.The origin of the ViZieR Catalogue Service dates back to 1993 as the ESA European Space Information System Catalogue Browser...
as catalogue number III/182.
External links
The Henry Draper Catalogue and its extensions are available on line free of charge at the VizieRVizieR
The VizieR Catalogue Service is an astronomical catalog service provided by Centre de données astronomiques de Strasbourg.The origin of the ViZieR Catalogue Service dates back to 1993 as the ESA European Space Information System Catalogue Browser...
service of the Centre de Données astronomiques de Strasbourg
Centre de Données astronomiques de Strasbourg
The Centre de données astronomiques de Strasbourg is a data hub which collects and distributes astronomical information. It was established in 1972 under the name Centre de Données Stellaires...
:
- Henry Draper Catalogue and Extension, A. J. Cannon and E. C. Pickering, CDSCentre de Données astronomiques de StrasbourgThe Centre de données astronomiques de Strasbourg is a data hub which collects and distributes astronomical information. It was established in 1972 under the name Centre de Données Stellaires...
ID III/135A. - The Henry Draper Extension Charts: A catalogue of accurate positions, proper motions, magnitudes and spectral types of 86933 stars, V. V. Nesterov, A. V. Kuzmin, N. T. Ashimbaeva, A. A. Volchkov, S. Roeser, and U. Bastian, CDSCentre de Données astronomiques de StrasbourgThe Centre de données astronomiques de Strasbourg is a data hub which collects and distributes astronomical information. It was established in 1972 under the name Centre de Données Stellaires...
ID III/182.