The 5th revision of the Bright Star Catalogue (BSC) was released about 20 years ago, and is one of the primary sources for information about stars brighter than 6.5V. A supplement exists, adding a couple of thousand extras down to a magnitude of 7.1V.
Of course, there are many stars brighter than this cut-off that are not included. Also, the current version was released prior to the Hipparcos catalogue, meaning that some of the information is out of date, particularly parallaxes.
My current project is to edit a new catalogue, perhaps called the Extended Bright Star Catalogue (for now at least), that will attempt to bring together all the stars brighter than 7.1V i.e. the same magnitude range as the BSC Supplement. Data from the Hipparcos satellite will be included, and I will be looking carefully at the identifiers, not only correcting omissions, but proposing some improvements here and there.
I'll be starting at Octans and working my way north, constellation by constellation, and be blogging my results. Hope you can join me.
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