Hipparcos New Astrometric Catalog: Improved Stellar Positions and Parallaxes

A new reduction of Hipparcos satellite data claims accuracies up to four times better for stars brighter than magnitude 8.0 compared to the original 1997 catalog. The catalog provides improved astrometric data, including parallaxes and proper motions, for studies of stellar luminosities and local galactic kinematics. This version was created by NASA HEASARC in August 2009 based on corrected data from the CDS Catalog I/311.

Use Cases

• Calibrating stellar luminosity models based on improved parallax measurements.
• Studying local galactic kinematics and stellar motions based on high-precision proper motions.
• Validating other astrometric surveys by comparing positions and parallaxes with this high-accuracy reference.
• Investigating error correlations and formal error distributions in large-scale astrometric data reductions.

Strengths

• Claims accuracies up to a factor of 4 better than the original Hipparcos catalog for stars brighter than magnitude H_p = 8.0.
• The new reduction provides an improvement by a factor of 2.2 in total weight compared to the 1997 catalog.
• Error correlation levels were reduced by more than a factor of 10 in the new catalog.
• Formal errors on parallaxes are confirmed and external errors were investigated via comparisons with radio observations.

Limitations

• Row count and specific column definitions are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• The presence of a small amount of additional noise, though unlikely, cannot be ruled out according to the description.
• The catalog version archived at CDS between June and September 2008 contained errors that were later corrected.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) HEASARC, based on data from the European Space Agency's Hipparcos mission and the CDS Catalog I/311.

Collection Method

A new reduction of astrometric data from the Hipparcos satellite mission.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 17:20:16.138638; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Celestial sphere; covers stars brighter than Hipparcos magnitude H_p = 8.