Reference Catalog of Bright Galaxies

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The Reference Catalog of Bright Galaxies, with its two updates, is a catalog of bright galaxies compiled by Gérard de Vaucouleurs and co-workers . The abbreviations RC1 to RC3 are common .

The aim of all versions of the RC was to compile important data such as diameter, brightness, color, redshift and classification as well as identification with other galaxy catalogs and literature references for bright and well-studied galaxies. The RC1 (1964) contained data for 2599 objects, six of which were later found not to be galaxies. RC2 (1976) contained 4,364 objects (two of which were not galaxies), and the third version (RC3, 1991) contained 23024 galaxies. While the first two versions collected data from known galaxies without attempting to completeness up to a certain limit, part of the RC3 aims for completeness for all galaxies with a diameter of more than 1 arc minute, a blue brightness below 15.5 magnitudes, and a redshift below 15,000 km / s. 11897 galaxies in RC3 meet these conditions.

The Reference Catalog of Bright Galaxies thus contained considerably more objects than the Shapley-Ames catalog and replaced it for many purposes.

The RC3 also contains other information such as the brightness in the far infrared as measured by IRAS , and measurements in the 21cm line of atomic hydrogen.

literature

  • de Vaucouleurs, G., de Vaucouleurs, A., Reference Catalog of Bright Galaxies , 1964, Austin: University of Texas Press
  • de Vaucouleurs, G., de Vaucouleurs, A., Corwin, JR, Second Reference Catalog of Bright Galaxies , 1976, Austin: University of Texas Press
  • de Vaucouleurs, G., et al., Third Reference Catalog of Bright Galaxies , 1991, New York: Springer, ISBN 0-387-97552-7