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New Optically Visible Open Clusters and Candidates Catalog

Metadata Updated: September 19, 2025

This is a new catalog of open clusters in the Galaxy which updates the previous catalogs of Lynga (1987, <a href="https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/ftp/cats/VII/92">CDS Cat. VII/92</a>, the HEASARC Browse table now called LYNGACLUST) and of Mermilliod (1995, in Information and On-Line Data in Astronomy, ed. D. Egret & M. A. Albrecht (Dordrecht: Kluwer), 127) (included in the WEBDA database, <a href="http://www.univie.ac.at/webda/">http://www.univie.ac.at/webda/</a>;). New objects and new data, in particular, data on kinematics (proper motions) that were not present in the old catalogs, have been included. Virtually all of the clusters presently known are included, which represents a large increase in the number of objects (almost 1,000) relative to the Lynga Catalog. In total, 99.7% of the objects have estimates of their apparent diameters, and 74.5% have distance, E(B-V) and age determinations. Concerning the data on kinematics, 54.7% have their mean proper motions listed, 25% their mean radial velocities, and 24.2% have both information simultaneously. Acknowledgments: Extensive use has been made by the authors of the SIMBAD and WEBDA databases. This project is supported by FAPESP (grant number 03/12813-4) and CAPES (CAPES-GRICES grant number 040/2008). This database table was originally created by the HEASARC in September 2002 based on the CDS version of the catalog. In March 2006, the HEASARC updated the table to use instead the following file obtained from the authors' web site: <a href="http://www.astro.iag.usp.br/ocdb/file/clusters.txt">http://www.astro.iag.usp.br/ocdb/file/clusters.txt</a>;. In August 2017, the HEASARC reverted to using the CDS version of this catalog, available as the file clusters.dat at <a href="http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/ftp/cats/B/ocl/">http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/ftp/cats/B/ocl/</a>;. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date September 19, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from NASA Data.json

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date September 19, 2025
Publisher High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center
Maintainer
Identifier ivo://nasa.heasarc/openclust
Data Last Modified 2025-09-10
Category Astrophysics
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 026:00
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id a1bcb528-6691-47a9-8b71-b911c5a0f288
Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
Homepage URL https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/W3Browse/all/openclust.html
Program Code 026:000
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash d06f0ee4950e98cad6a8084a1805b2dfed43cf41443019e1c84d57f23ba73b5a
Source Schema Version 1.1

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