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New Optically Visible Open Clusters and Candidates Catalog

Published by High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center | National Aeronautics and Space Administration | Metadata Last Checked: September 14, 2025 | Last Modified: 2025-09-10
This is a new catalog of open clusters in the Galaxy which updates the previous catalogs of Lynga (1987, <a href="https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/ftp/cats/VII/92">CDS Cat. VII/92</a>, the HEASARC Browse table now called LYNGACLUST) and of Mermilliod (1995, in Information and On-Line Data in Astronomy, ed. D. Egret & M. A. Albrecht (Dordrecht: Kluwer), 127) (included in the WEBDA database, <a href="http://www.univie.ac.at/webda/">http://www.univie.ac.at/webda/</a>). New objects and new data, in particular, data on kinematics (proper motions) that were not present in the old catalogs, have been included. Virtually all of the clusters presently known are included, which represents a large increase in the number of objects (almost 1,000) relative to the Lynga Catalog. In total, 99.7% of the objects have estimates of their apparent diameters, and 74.5% have distance, E(B-V) and age determinations. Concerning the data on kinematics, 54.7% have their mean proper motions listed, 25% their mean radial velocities, and 24.2% have both information simultaneously. Acknowledgments: Extensive use has been made by the authors of the SIMBAD and WEBDA databases. This project is supported by FAPESP (grant number 03/12813-4) and CAPES (CAPES-GRICES grant number 040/2008). This database table was originally created by the HEASARC in September 2002 based on the CDS version of the catalog. In March 2006, the HEASARC updated the table to use instead the following file obtained from the authors' web site: <a href="http://www.astro.iag.usp.br/ocdb/file/clusters.txt">http://www.astro.iag.usp.br/ocdb/file/clusters.txt</a>. In August 2017, the HEASARC reverted to using the CDS version of this catalog, available as the file clusters.dat at <a href="http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/ftp/cats/B/ocl/">http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/ftp/cats/B/ocl/</a>. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .

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