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Description
The ACRS is an all-sky catalog of positions and proper motions that is based on the AGK3 in the north and on the newly completed second Cape Photographic Catalogue (CPC2, de Vegt et al. 1989) in the south. The astrometric data are on the system of the International Reference Stars (IRS, catalog <I/172>), compiled on B1950.0 FK4 and then transformed to J2000.0 FK5. The ACRS contains 320,111 stars, the mean positions for which were derived from a total of 1,643,783 individual input positions. The catalog is divided into two parts. Part 1 contains stars having better observational histories and, therefore, more reliable positions and proper motions, while the stars in Part 2 have poor histories and consist mostly of objects for which only two catalog positions in one or both coordinates were available for computing proper motions. For Part 1, which consists of 78 percent of the catalog, the mean errors of the proper motions in right ascension and declination are 0.47 and 0.46 seconds of arc/century (4.7 and 4.6 mas/yr), respectively. It is intended that, as more observations are accumulated for stars in Part 2, they will be migrated to Part 1. The catalog was compiled at the U.S. Naval Observatory, Washington, D.C., for purposes of performing new reductions of the Astrographic Catalogue plates. Additional details about the construction of the ACRS may be found in Corbin and Urban (1989). The data included are catalog part, ACRS number, equatorial coordinates (equinox, equator, epoch B1950.0 and J2000.0), proper motions (B1950.0 and J2000.0), original epochs, weights for right ascension and declination, and reference data such as DM numbers (BD, CD, CPD), AGK3 and CPC2 designations, and an IAU recommended ACRS identifier (based on coordinates).
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