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ISSN 1063-7737, Astronomy Letters, 2006, Vol. 32, No. 4, pp. 263­273. c Pleiades Publishing, Inc., 2006. Original Russian Text c N.N. Samus', O.V. Durlevich, A.V. Zharova, E.V. Kazarovets, N.N. Kireeva, E.N. Pastukhova, D.B. Williams, M.L. Hazen, 2006, published in Pis'ma v Astronomicheski Zhurnal, 2006, Vol. 32, No. 4, pp. 295­306. i

Electronic Version of the Third Volume of the General Catalogue of Variable Stars with Improved Coordinates
N. N. Samus'1, 2 * , O. V. Durlevich2, A. V. Zharova2 , E. V. Kazarovets1 , N. N. Kireeva1 , E. N. Pastukhova1, D. B. Williams3 , and M. L. Hazen4
1

Institute of Astronomy, Russian Academy of Sciences, ul. Pyatnitskaya 48, 2 Sternberg Astronomical Institute, Universitetskii pr. 13, Moscow, 3 American Association of Variable Star Observers, 25 Birch Str., Cambri 4 Harvard College Observatory, 60 Garden Str., Cambridge, MA
Received October 31, 2005

Moscow, 119017 Russia 119992 Russia dge, MA 02138, USA 02138, USA

Abstract--We present a new electronic version of the third volume of the fourth edition of the General Catalogue of Variable Stars (GCVS) that contains data on 13 855 variables in the constellations Pavo­ Vulpecula. The Name Lists of Variable Stars from no. 67 to no. 77 were included in the new version. The main distinctive feature of the new version is that improved J2000.0 equatorial coordinates (including those for 6163 stars corrected for the proper motions) based on the identifications with positional catalogues using finding charts and on our new measurements are presented for 13 812 stars. We searched for a number of stars on original plates from the plate stacks of several observatories and using images from digital sky surveys. Apart from the complete update of the positional information, we made several corrections that were found to be necessary after the publication of the GCVS Volume III (1985) and several corrections of the information about the variability features based on photometry from currently available automatic sky surveys. A number of problem identifications are described in detail. The new version completes our longterm work on the complete revision of the positional information in the GCVS. In the Conclusions, we give a list of references to new Internet resources. PACS numbers : 97.30.-b; 97.80.Hn DOI: 10.1134/S1063773706040074 Key words: stars--variable and peculiar.

INTRODUCTION This paper completes the series of our publications on the new electronic versions of the volumes of the General Catalogue of Variable Stars (GCVS) with improved coordinates (Samus' et al. 2002, 2003; Papers I and II) and presents a similar version of the GCVS Volume III. The new electronic version is based on the fourth GCVS edition (Kholopov et al. 1985­1988); its Volumes I­III contain data on 28 435 variable stars of our Galaxy (without including the named variable stars that proved to be nonexistent, e.g., minor planets taken for stars, artifacts due to repeated exposures of a plate, etc.). With the succeeding eleven Name Lists of Variable Stars (from no. 67 to no. 77) included, the number of named Galactic variable stars in 2003 exceeded 38 500. The standard accuracy of the variable star coordinates presented in all the printed GCVS editions since 1948 (to 1 s of time
*

E-mail: samus@sai.msu.ru

in right ascension and to 0.1 arcmin in declination, with a substantial fraction of the GCVS stars having coordinates still less accurate than this standard or just erroneous coordinates) does not meet the current requirements formulated in more detail in Paper I. Therefore, we set the objective of preparing a GCVS version with improved coordinates for all of the catalogued stars, where possible, that would also include their proper motions if they can be found in the existing positional catalogues. This paper completes the implementation of this program. When working on the new electronic version of Volume III, we set out to revise the information about the pattern of variability provided in the GCVS using, in particular, photometric data from currently available automatic sky surveys. A continuation of this revision will be an important objective of our future studies.
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THE CATALOGUE PREPARATION METHODS The catalogue preparation methods were described in detail in Paper I. In general, they have undergone no changes. The possibilities for effectively identifying variable stars with positional catalogues continue to improve. In compiling the new version of the GCVS Volume III, apart from the sources listed in Papers I and II, we actively used such new catalogues as the Second US Naval Observatory CCD Astrograph Catalog, UCAC2 (Zacharias et al. 2004; more than 48 300 000 stars with significantly improved proper motions compared to the previous version) and the complete version of the all-sky 2.2 µm survey, 2MASS (Cutry et al. 2003, 471 000 000 point infrared sources). As previously, the SIMFOV code written and continuously improved by A.A. Volchkov until the last days of his life served as the main tool for visualizing astronomical catalogues and retrieving data from them. During our work on the electronic version of the GCVS Volume III, he made changes to the code that allowed us to perform identifications also with the complete version of the 2MASS catalogue and the UCAC2 catalogue. Recall that the code makes it possible to display a chart of the selected sky field on the required scale containing objects from catalogues of a given list and then to view it zooming in and out and to retrieve information contained in the corresponding catalogue for any image. This code enables automatic identifications of user lists with catalogues based on the coordinates with (or without) allowance for the coincidence of the magnitudes. It is possible to view images, retrieve information, and compare lists for the coordinates referred to any equinox. As before, we used published and unpublished finding charts of variable stars. For the GCVS Volume III, as previously for Volume II, the photographic finding charts of stars sent to the GCVS team in the 1960s by L. Plaut (the Netherlands), the discoverer of their variability, were of particular importance. Such charts are available for some 2000 variable stars in Sagittarius, a constellation in the GCVS Volume III. As previously, in many cases, we recovered variable stars based on images from the Digitized Sky Survey (DSS; the Hubble Space Telescope Science Institute), the Aladin Sky Atlas (the Center for Astronomical Data, Strasbourg), and the US Naval Observatory Image and Catalog Archive, as well as plates from the plate collection of the Sternberg Astronomical Institute (SAI), the Harvard Observatory plate stacks, and other archives, to take into account the marks left by the discoverers on the plates of the Harvard stacks and the sketches in the discoverers' notebooks from the Harvard archive.

If a variable star was absent in the existing positional catalogues, we measured its coordinates on original plates or available digital sky images. This often had to be done also to determine the coordinates for variable components of visual double stars or for variable stars in clusters. However, the fraction of the stars for which we had to resort to this technique for Volume III was not very large primarily owing to the complete 2MASS catalogue invaluable for crowded star fields. Without this catalogue, the work in crowded fields of, e.g., Sagittarius in Volume III would have inevitably led to numerous mistakes, as was the case, in particular, with many identifications suggested by Kato (1999b). We experienced certain difficulties when searching for variable stars discovered by Maffei (1975) in Sagitta, Sagittarius, Scutum, and Serpens. The formally accurate coordinates provided by this author are actually rough. The finding charts published much later by Maffei and Tosti (1999) improved the situation. Unfortunately, the latter paper contains quite a few inaccuracies, misprints, wrong charts, and discrepancies between charts and coordinates, which rules out unambiguous identifications in several cases. We were able to find most flare stars in Pleiades (Taurus), although their discoverers often published overly rough coordinates and ignored the repeated recommendations of IAU Commission 27 urging publication of finding charts. We relied on the results by Stauffer et al. (1991) and Kazarovets (1993), who used the charts from Haro et al. (1982) for their identifications. Note, however, that, in several cases, the identifications based on the charts from Haro et al. (1982) raise doubts that we failed to remove. As in our work on the first two GCVS volumes, we also made changes to the electronic version of Volume IV when finding omissions in the tables of identifications of variable stars with main catalogues (BD, CoD, CPD, HD, etc.). Having finished the preparation of the electronic version of the catalogue, we performed its automatic (by coordinates) identification with the GSC for checking purposes, as a result of which we revealed and corrected several errors, and its automatic (with subsequent verification) identification with the UCAC2 catalogue, which had not yet been available when we began our work on the new Volume III version. In the last two years, access to such automatic sky surveys as ASAS-3 (Pojmanski 2002) and ROTSE´ I/NSVS (Wozniak et al. 2004) has been provided. These surveys allow access to the original CCD observations that by no means always were used by the survey authors themselves for many relatively bright variables, predominantly of the northern (NSVS) sky and the southern (ASAS-3) sky. Observations from
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the automatic surveys often allow one to confirm the variability of the stars suggested as identifications of GCVS objects and to check the GCVS information about the pattern of variability. We suppose that a detailed revision of the astrophysical information contained in the GCVS will be the next stage of our work on the catalogue. We published the first results of this new program obtained during our work on improving the identifications and coordinates for Volume III stars (Pastukhova et al. 2004; Antipin et al. 2005) for 75 variable stars in Telescopium and 49 variables in seven other constellations. RESULTS The electronic version of Volume II is accessible at ftp.sai.msu.ru/pub/groups/cluster/gcvs/gcvs/vol3/ or at www.sai.msu.su/groups/cluster/gcvs/gcvs/ vol3/. The main table (vol3.dat) in the new electronic version of the GCVS Volume III contains information about 13 857 objects (not counting the stars erroneously named for the second time or proved nonexistent) in the constellations Pavo­Vulpecula, which are mostly the variable stars of our Galaxy discovered and named by 2003, i.e., it covers the variable stars included in the fourth edition of the GCVS, with Name Lists nos. 67­77 (for the same constellations). Our version presents new equatorial J2000.0 coordinates (vol3_pos.dat) for 13 812 variable stars; for 6163 of these stars, the proper motions were taken into account; so far we have failed to determine accurate coordinates for 43 variable stars due to the absence of finding charts and the lack of information for star identifications. Recall that Papers I and II presented no accurate coordinates for 233 of the 24 068 stars in the GCVS Volumes I and II; since corrections were continuously made to this version, by the end of 2005, the number of GCVS Volume I and II stars without accurate coordinates was reduced to 157. In total, with the new identifications and the latest Name Lists included, our files contain accurate coordinates for 38 310 GCVS stars and also provide the proper motions for 16 046 of them. Among the variables that still remain without identifications, there are particularly many stars discovered in South Africa by R. Innes and H. Wood in the early 20th century. The paper by Gasperoni et al. (1991) occupies a special place: among the 35 variable stars whose discoveries were announced in this paper and that entered into the GCVS via Name Lists no. 71 and later, 25 stars could not be found, and the other ten identifications remain uncertain. All of the coordinates in this paper containing no finding charts are probably grossly in error. A detailed description of the files can be found in the readme.txt file of the electronic version.
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The file vol3.dat. The structure of the main table (vol3.dat) corresponds to that of the combined table in the 4th GCVS edition and the Name Lists (Kholopov et al. 1998; see also www.sai.msu.su/groups/cluster/ gcvs/gcvs/iii/iii.dat). The differences between these tables are described in Papers I and II; here, we repeat the corresponding information with recently introduced minor changes for the convenience of users. (1) In place of the B1950.0 coordinates, we provide new improved equatorial J2000.0 coordinates (right . ascensions to within 0s1 and declinations to within 1 ). The coordinates that could not be improved were recalculated from the old rough coordinates to equinox J2000.0 by applying a correction for precession. (2) The latest Name Lists, up to no. 77, were included. (3) We corrected all of the serious mistakes found in our GCVS work in other columns of the main table, in the references, and in the notes. For the stars having no published finding charts, but identified by us with the GSC, GSC2.2, 2MASS, the US Naval Observatory (USNO) A1.0/A2.0/B1.0, or UCAC2 catalogues, we now give the symbol of the corresponding catalogue (GSC, GSC2.2, 2MASS, USNO, UCAC2) as a reference to a finding chart. The main table is presented in a form traditional for the GCVS, i.e., in order of constellations and GCVS variable star names. The table includes the following information: J2000.0 equatorial coordinates, variability types, magnitudes at maximum and minimum light, photometric systems of the magnitudes, epochs of minima or maxima, period of brightness variations, durations of the brightness rise from minimum to maximum or eclipse durations, spectral types, and references. For the stars from Name Lists nos. 67­77 appeared after the publication of the GCVS 4th edition, we provide not all of the columns of the table, but only the coordinates, variability types, magnitudes, and references; the missing data will be added to the 5th edition of the GCVS. The file vol3_pos.dat. The positional information based on our identifications with main astrometric catalogues, on published data, or on our new measurements (see below) is provided for 13 812 variable stars of the new version of Volume III (including the stars of the Name Lists in the same constellations) in the table vol3_pos.dat. The order of stars in this table is the same as that in the main table. The table consists of the following columns. (1) Star numbers in the system traditional for the electronic GCVS versions. (2) GCVS star names. (3) Improved equatorial J2000.0 coordinates (right . ascensions to within 0s01 and declinations to within 0 . 1).


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(4) A flag indicating that the coordinates are actually rougher than the new accuracy standard of the catalogue, because we failed to determine or find more accurate coordinates in the source catalogues and journal papers. The flag is a colon (:) in the position following the coordinates. (5) Proper motions (in arcseconds per year for both coordinates) to within 0 . 001 yr-1 . (6) Epochs of the given coordinates. (7) A flag indicating the uncertainty in identifying the variable star with the source catalogue (the question mark at the corresponding position). (8) A brief designation of the astrometric data source. In several cases, the designation of a catalogue is followed by the symbol "+pm"; this implies that we took the star position for a certain epoch from this catalogue and reduced it to epoch 2000.0 using information about the proper motion of the star from adifferent source. Below, we provide a list of the main catalogues and data sources used, roughly in order of preference in identifying variable stars. We considered the coordinates from several positional catalogues based on plates of Schmidt surveys and catalogues of comparable accuracy as being virtually equivalent. Only the catalogues that were used as the sources of accurate coordinates for the stars contained in the GCVS Volume III are listed. Hip--The Hipparcos Catalogue (ESA 1997). ¨ Tyc2--The Tycho Catalogue (Hog et al. 2000). UCAC2--The US Naval Observatory CCD Astrograph Catalog (Zacharias et al. 2004). PPM--PPM Star Catalogue, Positions and Proper ¨ Motions (Roser et al. 1991­1993). AC--The Four-Million Star Catalogue (see Gulyaev and Nesterov 1992). ACT--The ACT Reference Catalog (Urban et al. 1997). FASTT--coordinates of variable stars (in the equatorial region of the sky) measured with the Flagstaff Astrometric Scanning Transit Telescope of the US Naval Observatory (Henden and Stone 1998). GSC2.2--The Guide Star Catalogue, Version 2.2 (STScI 2001). GSC--The Guide Star Catalog (Lasker et al. 1990). A2.0, B1.0--A Catalog of Astrometric Standards (Monet et al. 1998; there are a few cases where the star could be found only in the previous version of the catalogue, they are marked as A1.0); The WholeSky USNO-B1.0 Catalog of 1,045,913,669 Sources (Monet et al. 2003). 2MASS--The Two Micron All Sky Survey (Cutri et al. 2003).

For 155 stars, the coordinates were measured by the authors using Digitized Sky Survey images, plates from various plate collections, or other images. The source of the coordinates is specified as "GCVS" in these cases. The coordinates taken from current astronomical periodicals are marked as "Lit." We present a fragment of the table vol3_pos.dat as a guide to its content (the first 20 stars; Table 1). The table does not contain the star RW Pav, since we failed to identify it. The identification of ST Pav is flagged as uncertain. These two stars were discovered in South Africa in the early 20th century (see above). The distribution of stars from the new version of the GCVS Volume III in sources of their coordinates is shown in the figure; the GCVS and Lit. sources and some of the catalogues used in a few cases were combined into a sector called "Others." COMMENTS ON SOME OF THE PROBLEM STARS OF THE ELECTRONIC VERSION Below, we make comments pertaining to individual stars of the GCVS Volume III. We do not set the goal of listing all of the complex cases that we encountered when working on our catalogue. It seems to us that the examples collected below give an idea of the typical problems that the compilers of the catalogue have to solve. The adopted coordinates and identifications for the stars described in the comments are presented in Table 2. RR Phe. The identification in Demartino et al. (1996) is erroneous. SX Pyx. Hoffmeister (1949, 1957) reported the discovery of this Mira star and published a finding chart, which is in agreement with the approximate coordinates provided by this author. There are no red stars in the place indicated by him, and we failed to find any variable objects in digital sky surveys. At our request, S.Yu. Shugarov found Hoffmeister's notes in the archive of the Sonneberg Observatory (Germany); it follows from them that the star was bright on the plate taken on February 3, 1938. However, there is no star at the position marked in the chart both on this plate and on other plates of the Sonneberg collection. We may be dealing with a defect that was subsequently removed from the plate; other explanations are not ruled out either. We did not include this star in the table. IO Sge. Skiff (1997) correctly pointed out that this Mira star is not identical to G142­11, a neighboring red dwarf with a large proper motion, but his identification of the variable is also erroneous. KY Sge. Contrary to Skiff (1997), the eastern rather than the western component of the close pair is variable.
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ELECTRONIC VERSION Table 1. Fragment of the electronic table vol3_pos.dat GCVS 610001 610002 610003 610004 610005 610006 610007 610008 610009 610010 610011 610012 610013 610014 610016 610017 610018 610020 610021 R S T U V W X Y Z RR RS RT RU RV RX RY RZ ST SU Pav Pav Pav Pav Pav Pav Pav Pav Pav Pav Pav Pav Pav Pav Pav Pav Pav Pav Pav J2000.0 181252.97 195513.96 195043.48 205531.08 174318.94 175026.94 201145.85 212416.74 193527.89 200652.51 180722.00 183630.53 180727.34 180933.96 185824.55 200123.48 174853.51 210403.16 201738.99 -633657.3 -591144.3 -714617.3 -624215.2 -574326.3 -622433.0 -595612.8 -694402.0 -624533.0 -632428.1 -585742.0 -695306.1 -591453.6 -592721.6 -594625.3 -565001.4 -584443.5 -651523.4 -600419.0 p.m. (as yr -0.026 +0.017 +0.000 +0.002 -0.003 +0.007 +0.029 +0.009 +0.016 ­ -0.005 +0.001 ­ ­ +0.005 -0.013 -0.002 ­ +0.009
-1

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)

Epoch 2000.0 2000.0 2000.0 2000.0 2000.0 2000.0 2000.0 2000.0 2000.0 1979.704 2000.0 2000.0 1975.449 1975.553 2000.0 2000.0 2000.0 1983.229 ? 2000.0

Source Hip Hip Hip Tyc2 Hip Tyc2 Hip Hip Tyc2 GSC Hip Tyc2 GSC GSC Lit. Lit. Tyc2 A2.0 Tyc2

+0.014 -0.044 -0.005 +0.000 -0.006 -0.006 -0.010 -0.007 -0.044 ­ +0.001 -0.012 ­ ­ -0.011 -0.009 -0.020 ­ -0.005

LP Sge. The identification in Skiff (1997) is erroneous. Skiff's identifications are also erroneous for several other stars (e.g., LU Sge, LY Sge, LZ Sge, MO Sge, MU Sge, NW Sge), which we did not include in the table to save space. V1340 Sgr and V1341 Sgr. This is a close pair of variable stars. Judging by the coordinates published by Gaposchkin (1956), the red variable Baade 228 = V1340 Sgr is the northern component of the pair, while the charts from Gaposchkin (1956, 1958) indicate that the RR Lyrae star Baade 71 = V1341 Sgr is the northern component. The colors of the candidates in digital sky surveys imply that the identification suggested by the charts is correct. V1368 Sgr. It is erroneously marked in the photographic chart by Gaposchkin (1956), while the chart drawn by Gaposchkin (1958) is correct. It may well be that the variable's color information in
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Gaposchkin (1956) refers to the erroneous identification. V1375 Sgr and V4108 Sgr. Gaposchkin (1956) reported that W. Baade discovered the variable Baade 238 (V1375 Sgr) that proved to be an eclipsing star . with a period of 1d8681. In its neighborhood, Blanco . (1984) found an RRC star with a period of 0d427802 that was subsequently designated as V4108 Sgr. The star Baade 238 in the photographic chart of Gaposchkin (1956) was probably added by hand; this image is south of V4108 Sgr easily identifiable on Blanco's chart. The detailed hand-drawn chart by Gaposchkin (1958) suffers serious distortions, but, in principle, it does not rule out the identity of the two variables. The original observations published by Gaposchkin (1958) do not satisfy the period suggested by him, but allow a period very close to that found by Blanco to be derived. Gaposchkin probably observed either Blanco's star itself or its neighbor


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Table 2. Examples of the coordinates and identifications of problem stars Star RR Phe IO Sge KY Sge LP Sge V1340 Sgr V1341 Sgr V1368 Sgr V1983 Sgr V2062 Sgr V3643 Sgr V3821 Sgr V3841 Sgr 2000.0 23h 58m44s1 . 19 09 51.6 19 13 48.2 19 14 43.8 18 02 19.1 18 02 19.0 18 02 39.1 18 25 57.9 18 53 57.2 22 29 03.2 18 26 23.3 18 30 30.3 2000.0 -3927 00 +17 40 00 +17 38 54 +17 55 35 -30 09 28 -30 09 24 -29 48 34 -26 05 40 -23 16 21 -43 29 01 -22 04 22 -20 02 52 Epoch 1977.711 1997.531 1997.531 2000.231 1998.621 1958.297 1998.213 1998.547 2000.0 1987.377 1996.697 1998.421 µ µ Source GSC 2MASS 2MASS 2MASS 2MASS GCVS 2MASS 2MASS UCAC2 GSC2.2 GSC2.2 2MASS Identifications GSC 8015.01695 IRAS 19076+1734 IRAS 19124+1750

+0 . 024

+0 . 002

NSV G SC G SC IRAS

10773, 6861.00198 6860.01929, 18509­2320

V3846 Sgr V3917 Sgr V4108 Sgr V4706 Sgr V487 Tau V501 Tau V634 Tau V648 Tau V802 Tau V804 Tau V853 Tau V859 Tau V881 Tau V1088 Tau XZ Tel BB TrA LM TrA XY Vel CE Vul FS Vul FT Vul GR Vul KY Vul MO Vul V339 Vul V354 Vul

18 18 18 18 03 03 03 03 03 03 03 03 03 03 18 16 16

32 18 02 01 39 42 44 47 51 53 45 46 51 49 28 16 20

11. 47. 44. 30. 21. 28. 44. 10. 51. 25. 12. 31. 10. 20. 53. 43. 33.

9 5 2 2 6 0 5 4 1 0 4 3 3 9 2 6 6

- - - - + + + + + + + + + + - - -

22 12 29 27 23 25 24 24 23 23 22 22 24 24 51 60 68

02 37 48 57 50 11 10 57 17 37 41 18 24 33 48 45 34

54 12 44 01 01 32 30 19 41 51 51 20 08 25 49 21 16

1999.513 1999.333 1958.296 1999.508 1998.752 2000.0 1999.962 2000.732 1997.824 1973.3 1998.859 1998.881 1998.763 2000.023 1976.339 2000.0 2000.0 2000.0 2000.0 1986.669 1997.728 2000.0 1997.775 2000.0 2000.337 2000.285

+0.005

­0.004

2MASS 2MASS GCVS 2MASS 2MASS UCAC2 2MASS 2MASS 2MASS B1.0 2MASS 2MASS 2MASS 2MASS GSC2.2 UCAC2 UCAC2 Tyc2 UCAC2 GSC2.2 2MASS UCAC2 2MASS UCAC2 2MASS 2MASS

GSC 6274.01147, IRAS 18275­2004, V3875 Sgr IRAS 18292­2205 Serpens V1375 Sgr

V393 Tau

Uncertain identification

-0.016 -0.023 -0.009 +0.000

+0.002 ­0.003 -0.002 -0.000

11 04 58.9 19 32 57.8 19 36 23.7 19 36 24.7 19 20 19 19 19 48 26 42 11 50 11. 38. 39. 12. 08. 3 4 8 3 6

-55 39 05 +23 36 16 +27 10 08 +27 09 39 + + + + + 27 28 19 24 22 03 45 52 44 32 07 13 59 41 18

GSC 9273.01597, IRAS 16153­6826 Tyc2 8619 2253 1, GSC 8619.02253

+0.004 +0.002

-0.002 -0.009

G SC IRAS G SC IRAS G SC

2146.02575, 19343+2702 2147.00470 20245+2835 1610.00875

IRAS 19479+2224

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GSC 6% Others 5% 2MASS 27%

using Blanco's star as a comparison star; since the light curve is almost sinusoidal, it is difficult to choose between these two possibilities. In future, V4108 Sgr will be used as the main GCVS name of this star. V1983 Sgr = NSV 10773. This Mira variable was independently discovered by Luyten (1937) and Hoffleit (1960). Hoffleit's coordinates are erroneous by 18s in right ascension (4 arcmin). The identity is confirmed by the agreement between the light elements for Luyten's star inferred from ASAS-3 observations and the elements published by Hoffleit (1960). V2062 Sgr. A wrong star is marked in the discoverer's chart (Kooreman 1960). Our identification is confirmed by ASAS-3 observations. V3643 Sgr. Antipin et al. (1994) could not find this variable discovered by Plaut (1971) using the photographic finding chart provided by the discoverer, on which the stellar field completely disagreed with the coordinates plaut published. Now we have been able to find the variable; its declination in Plaut (1971) waserroneousby almost 4 . Interestingly, roughly the same incomprehensible error was committed by Plaut for V3443 Sgr that was found by Antipin et al. (1994). V3821 Sgr. The identifications by Predom and DeMartino (1991) and Kato (1999b) are erroneous. V3841 Sgr = V3875 Sgr. The coordinates given for V3875 Sgr by Hatfield (1972) proved to be erroneous by 8 in declination, and the chart she published is identical to that provided by Hoffleit (1972b) for V3841 Sgr. V3846 Sgr. Since the discoverer's chart (Hoffleit 1972a) is inaccurate, the identification by Kato (1999b) is erroneous. We identified the variable using archival materials of the Harvard Observatory. V3917 Sgr. This is an example of the difficulties involved in identifying some stars discovered by Maffei (1975). The declination published by the discoverer for this Mira star is outside the declination range for the remaining variables he discovered in the same field. Using the chart from Maffei and Tosti (1999), we managed to find the star very far from the published position (at 8 in declination and 3m in right ascension). With the corrected coordinates, the star is in Serpens, it will be given a new name in the GCVS system (see the next section). V4706 Sgr. The discoverers (S. Yoshida, http:// www.aerith.net/misao/) identified it with GSC 6850.02516, but digital sky surveys reveal variability of the red companion 12 west of this star. V393 Tau and V634 Tau. As the discoverers G.B. Ohanian and E.S. Parsamian explained at our request, we are dealing with the same star and that the erroneous coordinates given previously for V393 Tau in the GCVS resulted from a mistake in
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USNO 8% Tyc2 9%

GSC2.2 14%

Hip 15%

UCAC 16%

Distribution of stars from the new version of the GCVS Volume III in sources of the presented coordinates.

Haro (1968). In future, V634 Tau will be used as the main GCVS designation for this star. V487 Tau. We adopted the identification based on the chart from Parsamian (1975) that differs from those suggested by Jones (1981) and Stauffer et al. (1991). V501 Tau. The identification we adopted was suggested by Kazarovets (1993). It agrees with the chart from Haro et al. (1982) and differs from that adopted by Jones (1981) and Stauffer et al. (1991). V648 Tau. The identification that we adopted following Kazarovets (1993) agrees with the chart from Haro et al. (1982) and differs from that adopted by Jones (1981) and Stauffer et al. (1991). Note that the color indices given for our candidate in star catalogues are not in perfect agreement with those expected for a flare star. V757 Tau. The star's coordinates in Kazarovets (1993) and Stauffer et al. (1991) agree with the chart from Haro et al. (1982), but there is no star of suitable brightness in this place of the sky. We did not include this star in Table 2. V802 Tau. We adopted the identification from Stauffer et al. (1991), which agrees with the chart from Haro et al. (1982). Kazarovets (1993) suggested an identification with the other component of the double star; in general, its brightness is in better agreement. V804 Tau. The star's image was probably inaccurately added by hand to the photographic chart of Haro et al. (1982): there is no star of suitable brightness at the position given by Kazarovets (1993) and Stauffer et al. (1991). Our identification needs confirmation. V853 Tau and V859 Tau. These two stars were mixed up in Borisova et al. (2003), where their accurate coordinates are given. V881 Tau. The identification in Kazarovets (1993) seemed preferable to use compared to that suggested by Stauffer et al. (1991).


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V956 Tau and NSV 16149. For the variable stars discovered by Hojaev (1984), we had the photographic finding chart sent by this author, without which the identifications of faint stars based on the discoverer's very rough coordinates would be impossible. Unfortunately, not all of the stars discovered by Hojaev (1984) are marked in the chart. The declination of the star GSC 1830.01668 labeled in this chart as the flare variable B27 (V956 Tau) differs by about 25 from that published by Hojaev. . Its precise coordinates (04h 42m 25s3, +24 22 04 , J2000.0) roughly correspond to the approximate coordinates published in the same paper for another flare star, SB27 (NSV 16149). The dates of flares do not coincide for these two variables. We hesitated to attribute the above coordinates to V956 Tau or NSV 16149. V956 Tau was not included in Table 2. V1088 Tau. We adopted the identification based on the chart from Parsamian (1976), which differs from that suggested by Jones (1981). XZ Tel. The star's variability was discovered by Shapley et al. (1939). They deemed the star to be a somewhat unusual long-period variable and gave a period of 310d ; as follows from their data, the bright. ness at maximum is 15m2 pg, while at minimum the . star is fainter than 16m2 pg. We reliably identified the star using archival data of the Harvard Observatory. It was bright on six 1934 plates, near JD 2427659, and on five 1935 plates. The object was not recorded in the 2MASS catalogue and is evidently blue. Its brightness at minimum is probably about 20m B , although a . brightness of 16m8 B was recorded at the epoch of the GSC2.2 catalogue (1976.339). It is highly probable that the star is a dwarf nova. BB TrA and a new red variable. We identified the Mira variable BB TrA using archival materials of the Harvard Observatory. When searching for it, another . red variable star, IRAS 16124­6036 (16h 16m 45s9, 44 20 , J2000.0), very bright (K = 6.282) in -60 S the 2MASS catalogue, was found in its immediate neighborhood. Judging by the images in digital sky surveys and the magnitudes in the USNO-B1.0 catalogue, its R-band variability ranges at least from 14.6 to 16.2. LM TrA. The variability of this Mira star was discovered by Luyten (1933) and, independently, by Goossens and Waelkens (1980). The equinox given for the coordinates in the latter paper is erroneous, and the star is inaccurately marked in the founding ´ chart. This led to an erroneous identification in Lopez and Girard (1990). XY Vel. The discoverer, Hertzsprung (1924), identified this eclipsing variable with CoD­54 3951 and did not publish a finding chart. In our opinion, the designation CoD­54 3951 refers to a different star

(Tyc2 8619 2338 1). Our identification is confirmed by ASAS-3 data, which give an excellent light curve with Hertzsprung's light elements, although, as of October, 2005, the authors of the ASAS-3 survey did not find this variable. UU Vul. The discovery of the star's variability based on six plates, on only one of which the star was 2.5­3m brighter than on the remaining plates, was reported by Wolf (1924), who published its coordinates with a formal accuracy of 1 . There is no star of suitable brightness at the position given by him. Cannon and Mayall (1949) deemed the variable to be identical to the star HDE 352712 (F0). Tsesevich (1977) pointed out that this identification was groundless, but it had been reproduced in the SIMBAD database until February 2005. We failed to find the bona fide UU Vul and did not include it in Table 2. An error in the coordinates published by Wolf (1924) is probable. CE Vul. The discoveries of two variable stars in this region of the sky were reported. Ross (1927) found the variable Ross 255 from two photographic plates on which its brightness differed by approximately 1m . Gengler (1928) reported the discovery of a short-period star, AN 237.1928, almost exactly at the same position and published a finding chart. Although Morgenroth (1936) argued that he managed to rediscover both variables, they are considered identical in the GCVS. We found Gengler's star; its identification is confirmed by ROTSE-I/NSVS observations, which satisfy the light elements given by Tsesevich (1971) for this RR Lyrae variable. It is this star that is presented in the table as CE Vul. Despite the presence of several interesting candidates in this region (the very red star NSV 12138 and the source IRAS 19307+2330 with detected infrared variability), we could not find a second star of clearly variable brightness using images from digital sky surveys or observations from automatic photometric surveys. FS Vul. Different stars are marked in the charts from Wachmann (1961; comparison star d for FT Vul = HBV 245) and Wachmann (1964; HBV 356). We confirmed the identification suggested by Skiff (1999a) by rediscovering the star's variability using plates from the SAI plate collection. FT Vul. The star's identification with GSC 2146.01843 (Skiff 1999a) is erroneous. GR Vul. The coordinates by Wachmann (1963) are correct, while the chart is erroneous, which led to an erroneous identification in Skiff (1999a). Our identification is confirmed by ROTSE-I/NSVS observations. KY Vul. The identification by Kato (1999a) is erroneous.
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ELECTRONIC VERSION Table 3. List of GCVS stars in wrong constellations GCVS SX Ant V597 Aql V1500 Aql BG Aur SU CVn VY Cap V577 Cen RCep CY Cep V683 Cyg V1523 Cyg WX Eri QV Her IP Hya RR Hyi TLac TLeo HK Lup EG Nor SW Oct V392 Pav HI Peg CT Per VV Pyx MX Sge V1024 Sgr V1049 Sgr V1050 Sgr V3917 Sgr YSco V384 Sco V1124 Sco CZ Sct EK Tau ER Tau ES Tau AS TrA BM Vul 2000
h m .0 s6 .

271



2000.0

Constellation Pyx Sct Sct Tau UMa Aqr Hya UMi Cas Lac Cep Tau Lyr Cen Oct Peg Vir Sco TrA Ind Ind Psc Cas Pup Aql Sct Sct Sct Ser Oph Sgr Oph Aql Ori Aur Aur Nor Peg

MO Vul. Skiff (1999b) gave correct coordinates, but the GSC number he suggested actually refers to V1088 Aql. V339 Vul, V354 Vul. The identification by Skiff and Williams (1997) is erroneous.

09 27 24

-29 27 19 -06 42 11 -05 44 59 +28 39 27 +44 07 39 -14 27 23 -35 40 35 +88 59 25 +63 01 23 +44 10 20 +55 19 36 -00 42 15 +32 29 27 -30 05 03 -81 52 35 +34 24 51 +03 22 07 -39 04 46 -61 15 55 -74 15 12 -73 53 35 +07 14 53 +59 06 05 -20 50 38 +15 47 17 -15 44 02 -13 52 00 -13 54 58 -12 37 12 -19 20 51 -35 39 28 -30 07 23 -05 57 05 +19 49 15 +29 38 21 +28 45 52 -60 13 16 +25 07 59

18 58 41.5 18 58 10.3 05 09 38.5 12 06 05.1 21 09 00.9 11 56 49.7 18 11 19.2 23 20 09.2 21 57 32.6 20 42 48.8 03 24 23.2 18 15 11.0 14 18 47.4 01 05 19.4 22 22 23.4 11 38 26.8 16 08 22.5 16 22 11.7 22 20 55.8 21 32 30.3 23 09 20.4 02 11 34.5 08 27 33.3 19 17 56.7 18 51 13.2 18 58 27.4 18 58 33.7 18 18 47.5 16 29 26.4 18 01 43.3 17 23 15.4 18 58 45.8 05 49 25.2 05 11 11.8 05 29 24.9 16 13 35.1 21 30 40.7

THE VARIABLES TO BE RENAMED Having improved the coordinates for the stars of the entire catalogue, we can reveal all of the cases where the GCVS identifications do not agree with the constellation in which the star is actually located. Such cases may result from an improvement of the star's coordinates, changes of the constellation boundaries (for the variable stars named before the introduction of the current boundaries by the International Astronomical Union), and previously made mistakes in defining the constellations from tables. Constellation mismatch was found for 38 GCVS stars (Table 3); they will receive their new main GCVS names in one of the next Name Lists of variable stars, while the old names will remain as historical ones, not to be given to other stars to avoid confusion. CONCLUSIONS Below, we list the Internet addresses corresponding to the new resources presented in this paper. The version of the GCVS Volume III with improved coordinates is accessible at ftp://ftp.sai.msu.ru/pub/groups/cluster/gcvs/ gcvs/vol3/ or http://www.sai.msu.su/groups/cluster/gcvs/ gcvs/vol3/. Copies of all GCVS files are also accessible at ftp://ftp.sai.msu.su/pub/gcvs/ or http://www.sai.msu.su/gcvs/. These addresses will be used as the main ones in future. The improvements of the GCVS made in the new version of Volume III were incorporated in the catalogue's search system at http://www.sai.msu.su/groups/cluster/gcvs/cgibin/search.html.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We wish to thank S.V. Antipin for help. This work would have been impossible without the excellent software developed by the late A.A. Volchkov. We thank the researchers who helped us to identify the "lost" variable stars using plates of other observatories or sent us their finding charts. I.M. Volkov, G.B. Ohanian, E.S. Parsamian, and S.Yu. Shugarov helped us greatly. This study was supported in part by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (project nos. 02-02-16069 and 05-02-16289), the "Program of Support for Leading Scientific Schools" (project NSh-389-2003-2), the Federal "Astronomy" program, and the "Nonstationary Processes in Astrophysics" program of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences. We used the Digitized Sky Survey images provided by the Hubble Space Telescope Science Institute under support from grant NAG W-2166 of the US Government and the data from the US Naval Observatory Flagstaff Station Image and Catalogue Archive (http://www.nofs.navy.mil/data/fchpix/). REFERENCES
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ELECTRONIC VERSION 53. H. Shapley, E.H. Boyce, and C.D. Boyd, Harvard Obs. Ann. 90, 246 (1939). 54. B. A. Skiff, Inf. Bull. Var. Stars, No. 4433 (1997). 55. B. A. Skiff, Inf. Bull. Var. Stars, No. 4675 (1999a). 56. B. A. Skiff, Inf. Bull. Var. Stars, No. 4721 (1999b). 57. B. A. Skiff and G. V. Williams, Inf. Bull. Var. Stars, No. 4450 (1997). 58. J. Stauffer, A. Klemola, C. Prosser, and R. Probst, Astron. J. 101, 980 (1991). 59. STScI (The Space Telescope Science Institute and Osservatorio Astronomico di Torino), The Guide Sky ´ Catalogue, Version 2.2 (Centre de Donnees Astronomiques de Strasbourg, I-271, 2001). 60. V. P. Tsesevich, Perem. Zvezdy (Prilozhenie) 1, 227 (1971). 61. V. P. Tsesevich, Astron. Tsirk. 960, 8 (1977).

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Translated by N. Samus'

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