WBL Catalog: 732 Nearby Poor Galaxy Clusters

The WBL Poor Galaxy Clusters Catalog contains 732 optically selected, nearby poor clusters of galaxies covering the entire sky north of -3 degrees declination. It was created by White et al. in 1999 and ingested by NASA HEASARC in 2002. The catalog includes redshift data and cross-references to other group and cluster catalogs.

Use Cases

• Study the mass function of galaxy systems based on the catalog's coverage of over 3 orders of magnitude in cluster mass.
• Compare cluster richness and structure diversity with other catalogs like Hickson and Yerkes.
• Analyze optical concentrations of galaxies based on the identification criteria of three or more galaxies with photographic magnitudes brighter than 15.7.
• Cross-reference galaxy clusters with other catalogs using the provided identifiers.

Strengths

• Contains 732 clusters, substantially increasing the sample size of such objects compared to earlier catalogs.
• Covers the entire sky north of -3 degrees declination, providing broad spatial coverage.
• Systematically includes poor and rich galaxy systems, offering a greater diversity of richness and structures.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count for the associated galaxy table is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect observational bias inherent to the optical selection criteria and magnitude limit.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA HEASARC), based on CDS Catalog J/AJ/118/2014.

Collection Method

Optical identification of concentrations of three or more galaxies with photographic magnitudes brighter than 15.7 and a specific galaxy surface overdensity.

Time Range

Catalog published in 1999.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 18:03:11.236502; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Entire sky north of -3 degrees declination.