Cape Photographic Durchmusterung

star catalog

Also known as: “CPD”

Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Article History

Cape Photographic Durchmusterung (CPD), star catalog listing 454,875 stars of the 11th magnitude or brighter between 18° south declination and the south celestial pole. The CPD was a southern-sky supplement to the Bonner Durchmusterung. The photographic plates required were made between 1885 and 1890 at Cape Town by the British astronomer Sir David Gill. Jacobus Cornelis Kapteyn spent 10 years (1886–96) at Groningen, Neth., compiling the catalog from measurements of the positions of the star images on the plates. Kapteyn’s work was published in three volumes from 1895 to 1900.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Erik Gregersen.