WEBDA: The bibliography

Bibliography in WEBDA

The bibliography facility of the database is based on references and keywords, but not on paper abstracts and text search. It comprises two distinct parts.

The modern bibliography (after 1969)

The modern bibliography starts in 1969 and is linked to the publication of the Astronomy and Astrophysics Abstracts. These volumes were used to enter bibliography references of papers published prior to the beginning of the database. Most entries come from the chapter 153 of the Abstracts. Presently, the bibliography is based on the periodicals received every week in the library and is updated regularily. The bibliography is checked against the AAA volumes when they appear. It is organised for a search with keywords or author's name.

All the modern bibliography is contained is a single directory, called "bibliography", which is a part of the database structure. It consists of one file for each year in /rdb format. Each record contain successively:

  1. Key,
  2. Authors' name list
  3. Year, journal, volume, page
  4. Title of the paper
  5. Bibcode (SIMBAD, NED)
  6. Data types
  7. Keywords
The keywords associated with each reference have been attributed by the author. The cluster designation is an important keyword, because the bibliography retrieval for a given cluster seems to be one of the primary use. The second priority has been given to the description of observational data, since a large fraction of the papers on open clusters deals with new data. Then, many other keywords are used to describe various topics.
The list of keywords used for the description of the paper contents may be displayed.

Access to the modern bibliography

 

The Budapest bibliography (until 1981)

The computer-readable version of the Catalogue of Star Clusters and Associations (CSCA) (G. Alter, J. Ruprecht and V. Vanysek, 1970, Akademiai Kiado, Budapest) and the first supplement (J. Ruprecht, B. Balasz, and R.E. White, 1981, Akademiai Kiado, Budapest) containing the bibliography from 1901 to 1973, is available in WEBDA. The entire file has been split in smaller ones, and the information for each cluster has been installed in the cluster directory.

The information is severly condensed and we provide a list of the abbreviations used for the journal names and of those used for the scientific contents.

To query the Budapest bibliography, you first need to select a cluster from the Navigation Panel and follow the link Budapest bibliography in the cluster page.

The following lines have been excerpted from the introduction to the catalogue.

"Generally the first line of the file gives the designation of the object, the second line is devoted to various positional data, and the third line consists of the headings of the columns.

The first line contains the running number of the object followed by various designations, the first being the positional designation in the galactic system: the first 5 figures represent the galactic longitude (ddd.dd), the letters N or S indicate the northern or southern hemisphere, and the following 4 figures gives the galactic latitude (dd.dd). The next designations refer to the catalogue recording the object with the corresponding numbers.

The second line contains the positional data in the equatorial system, Epoch 1950: right ascension, declination, precession for 50 years, galactic directions, cosines X, Y, Z, position on the POSS chart (in mm from the lower left corner).

The third line give the headings for 13 columns: Year, Name, Publication, AD (Angular Diameter), Dist (Distance), LD (Linear Diameter), N (Number of stars), mg (magnitude), CI (Colour Index), Sp (Spectrum), p (Position), mt (Total magnitude),Note."

 

Update of the CSCA bibliography (1981 - 1994)

Since late 1980ies all the activity related to updating the CSCA has been transferred to the Astronomical Observatory of the Urals State University (informally referred to as the Kourovka Observatory). The results of this activity are the Supplements to the CSCA, covering the period from 1981 to around 1994 (last years are less complete). These Supplements have been prepared under the leadership of O.P. Pylskaya, with other Observatory staff having actively participated.

They contain data on more than 1000 open clusters extracted from over 150 sources, including refereed and non-refereed journals, conference proceedings, preprints, other calalogues, and so on. The creators of the Supplements tried to incorporate as much numerical information as possible. Keeping the original record format intact, they paid a particular attention to observations in various photometric bands and spectral lines, to cluster sizes and distances, to colour-magnitude diagrams and their morphology, to cluster stellar populations, their spatial and kinematic properties, to the ages and the chemical composition, to the relation between clusters and molecular clouds, and so on.

In total, the Supplements prepared at the Urals State University contain over 15000 records. In addition to the open cluster data, the analogous supplements for globular clusters and associations are available from the Kourovka Observatory upon request.

Contact : Dmitri Wiebe dwiebe@inasan.ru

Jean-Claude.Mermilliod@obs.unige.ch
Last update: 29 November 2004