WDS ivo://nasa.heasarc/wds NASA/GSFC HEASARC Mason, Wycoff, Hartkopf 2026-04-03 NASA/GSFC HEASARC help desk heasarc-vo at athena.gsfc.nasa.gov Star The Washington Double Star Catalog (WDS), maintained by the United States Naval Observatory (USNO), is the world's principal database of astrometric double and multiple star information. The WDS Catalog contains positions, discoverer designations, epochs, position angles, separations, magnitudes, spectral types, proper motions and when available, Durchmusterung numbers and notes for the components of close to 100,000 systems based on ~600,000 means. The current version at the HEASARC is updated weekly and is derived from the version available online at <a href="https://crf.usno.navy.mil/wds/">https://crf.usno.navy.mil/wds/</a> (and mirrored at <a href="http://www.astro.gsu.edu/wds/">http://www.astro.gsu.edu/wds/</a>), the latter being potentially updated nightly. The Washington Visual Double Star Catalog (WDS) is the successor to the Index Catalogue of Visual Double Stars, 1961.0 (IDS; Jeffers & van den Bos, 1963). Three earlier double star catalogs in the 20th century, those by Burnham (BDS; 1906), Innes (SDS; 1927), and Aitken (ADS; 1932), each covered only a portion of the sky. Both the IDS and the WDS cover the entire sky, and the WDS is intended to contain all known visual double stars for which at least one differential measure has been published. The WDS is continually updated as published data become available. Prior to this, two major updates have been published (Worley & Douglass 1984, 1997). The Washington Double Star Catalog (WDS) has seen numerous changes since the last major release of the catalog. The application of many techniques and considerable industry over the past few years has yielded unprecedented gains in both the number of systems and the number of measures. This version of the WDS catalog was first created at the HEASARC in March 2002 based on the USNO online version (available at either <a href="https://crf.usno.navy.mil/wds/">https://crf.usno.navy.mil/wds/</a> or <a href="http://www.astro.gsu.edu/wds/">http://www.astro.gsu.edu/wds/</a>), and is updated by the HEASARC on at least a weekly basis. The table schema was last revised in February 2005. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC . 2001AJ....122.3466M https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/W3Browse/all/wds.html Catalog Research served-by HEASARC TAP https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/xamin/vo/cone?showoffsets&table=wds& GET text/xml 180 99999 true 199.25 -89.88333333 0.0833333333333333 https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/xamin/vo/tap https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/W3Browse/getvotable.pl?name=wds GET text/xml https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/W3Browse/w3query.pl?tablehead=name=heasarc_wds&Action=More+Options&Action=Parameter+Search&ConeAdd=1 STAR CATALOG 0.0833333333333333 Optical public wds Washington Double Star Catalog class Browse Object Classification src.class short nullable first_date Year of First Observation yr time.start;obs short nullable bii Galactic Latitude degree pos.galactic.lat double nullable separation_date1 Separation on First Date (arcsec) arcsec pos.angDistance;time.start double nullable dm Durchmusterung Designation (Zone and Number) meta.id char nullable comp1_mag First Component Magnitude phot.mag double nullable secondary_pm_ra Proper Motion of the Secondary in Right Ascension (mas/yr) mas/yr pos.pm;pos.eq.ra short nullable ra Right Ascension degree pos.eq.ra;meta.main double nullable "__x_ra_dec" System unit vector column double nullable name Source Designation meta.id;meta.main char nullable lii Galactic Longitude degree pos.galactic.lon double nullable spect_type Spectral Type src.spType char nullable component_id Component Identification meta.code.multip char nullable primary_pm_dec Proper Motion of the Primary in Declination (mas/yr) mas/yr pos.pm;pos.eq.dec;meta.main short nullable dec Declination degree pos.eq.dec;meta.main double nullable pa_date1 Position Angle on First Date (degree) degree pos.posAng;time.start short nullable "__z_ra_dec" System unit vector column double nullable discoverer Discoverer Code and Number meta.id;obs.observer char nullable last_date Year of Last Observation yr time.end;obs short nullable comp2_mag Second Component Magnitude phot.mag double nullable pa_date2 Position Angle on Last Date (degree) degree pos.posAng;time.end short nullable primary_pm_ra Proper Motion of the Primary in Right Ascension (mas/yr) mas/yr pos.pm;pos.eq.ra;meta.main short nullable separation_date2 Separation on Last Date (arcsec) arcsec pos.angDistance;time.end double nullable "__row" System index column char nullable precision_flag Flag Indicates Precision of Position [HL] meta.code.qual;pos char nullable "__y_ra_dec" System unit vector column double nullable secondary_pm_dec Proper Motion of the Secondary in Declination (mas/yr) mas/yr pos.pm;pos.eq.dec short nullable number_obs Number of Observations meta.number;obs short nullable wds WDS Designation meta.id char nullable notes Codes Indicate Notes meta.note char nullable