Extended BSC

The Bright Star Catalogue (BSC) has gone through 5 editions throughout the 20th century, consisting of just under 9100 stars of magnitude 6.5V or greater. The final (preliminary) version as released about 20 years ago. A supplement of over 2000 stars (to magnitude 7.1V) was released with the 4th edition, but not integrated with the main catalogue. It is known that there are many stars with similar magnitudes not included in either the main catalogue or the supplement.

The Extended Bright Star Catalogue (EBSC) is unaffiliated with the BSC or their creators, but seeks to Expand the catalogue to be complete to the 7.1V limit. The work is currently ongoing, and comment is welcome. It will initially be released in 4 Volumes, each containing 22 constellations:

• EBSC Volume 1 (South Pole) nearing completion:

• EBSC file 1 (Near South Pole)
• EBSC file 2 (Cen, Cru, Phe, Nor pending final updates)
• Latest progress

• EBSC Volumes 2-4 to be released

Each file has four sections:

• White: Stars in the original BSC, indexed by their HR number
• Light Blue: Stars in the BSC supplement, errors and duplicates removed
• Dark Blue: Stars from the Hipparcos catalogue
• Orange: Other named stars (Bayer, Flamsteed, Gould and bright Variables not otherwise included)

The initial work has concentrated on the selection of stars for inclusion, and for updating the nomenclature (the BSC removed or omitted many designations). Some other data has not been updated or included yet: this will be done once the initial selection is complete.

Note that the HR column, apart from those stars in the original catalogue (HR <= 9100), is a temporary sequence number only, and is not to be used for identification.