The earliest predecessor of the
YBSC, titled
Harvard Photometry, was published in 1884 by the
Harvard College Observatory under the supervision of
Edward Charles Pickering, and contained about 4,000 stars. Following its release, Pickering promoted a broader stellar survey for the southern celestial hemisphere, equally as thorough as the
Harvard Photometry of 1884. This
photometry work was carried out by
Solon I. Bailey between 1889 and 1891, leading to the publication of the
Revised Harvard Photometry in 1908. The new catalogue contained stars down to
magnitude 6.5 in both hemispheres, for which
John A. Parkhurst continued work through the 1920s. The
Yale Bright Star Catalogue has been steadily enhanced since the Yale astronomer
Frank Schlesinger published the first version in 1930; even though the YBS is limited to the 9110 objects already in the catalog, the data for the objects already listed is corrected and extended, and it is appended with a comments section about the objects. The edition of 1991 was the fifth in order, a version that introduced a considerable enhancement of the comments section, to a little more than the size of the catalogue itself. This most recent edition, in addition to several previous editions, was compiled and edited by
Ellen Dorrit Hoffleit of
Yale University. The Harvard Revised Photometry, based on visual observations, has been superseded by photo-electric measurements using band pass filters, most prominently the
UBV photometric system. This can differ substantially (up to 1.8 magnitudes • 1st edition –
Catalogue of Bright Stars (1930) • 2nd edition –
Catalogue of Bright Stars (1940) • 3rd edition –
Catalogue of Bright Stars (1964) • 4th edition –
The Bright Star Catalogue (1982) • Supplement –
A Supplement to the Bright Star Catalogue (1983) • 5th edition –
The Bright Star Catalogue (1991), which exists only in electronic form, not in book form. ==See also==