This catalogue supersedes the previous version (VI/92). The last update is 01 July 2005. This project originated in the summer of 1991 when the author began compiling a cross-reference catalog and tabulation of published UBV{beta} photometry for stars listed in Stephenson and Sanduleak's Luminous Stars in the Southern Milky Way (Cat. III/43). This database was published in July 1993 (1993ApJS...87..367R) and was subsequently expanded to include compilations of published MK classifications (1995ApJS...97..189R), 4-color photometry (1996A&AS..117..313R), and radial velocities (1997AJ....113..823R) for these objects. In mid-1997 the project was again expanded to include UBV{beta} photometry for stars listed in the northern-hemisphere volumes of the "Case-Hamburg" (Cat. III/76) surveys (Cat. J/ApJS/115/271); MK classifications for the northern stars were similarly compiled and made electronically available to interested parties, though were not formally published. Work on the radial velocity and four-color compilations has since been discontinued, but interested readers may still obtain those (for the LS-South stars) from the author. Most of the LS objects are OB stars, but there are as well a number of A, F, and G supergiants and a few white dwarfs and Wolf Rayet stars. These surveys reached a limiting photographic magnitude of ~13.5, and were based on objective-prism surveys of dispersion 580{AA}/mm at H{gamma} More details can be found in the files "obnotes.htm" (HTML format). Abstract of the paper: The birthrate of stars of masses >=10M_{sun}_ is estimated from a sample of just over 400 O3-B2 dwarfs within 1.5kpc of the Sun and the result extrapolated to estimate the Galactic supernova rate contributed by such stars. The solar-neighborhood Galactic-plane massive star birthrate is estimated at ~176stars/kpc^3^/Myr. On the basis of a model in which the Galactic stellar density distribution comprises a "disk+central hole" like that of the dust infrared emission (as proposed by Drimmel and Spergel), the Galactic supernova rate is estimated at probably not less than ~1 nor more than ~2 per century and the number of O3-B2 dwarfs within the solar circle at ~200000.

Cone search capability for table V/125/obmk (Collation of MK classifications)

Cone search capability for table V/125/obubvbet (Collation of UBV-beta data)

Cone search capability for table V/125/obcat (Catalog of star names/identifiers, positions, and cross-references, ordered by increasing RA)