Henry Draper Catalogue

astronomy

Also known as: HD, HD classification

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Article History

Henry Draper Catalogue (HD), listing of the positions, magnitudes, and spectral types of stars in all parts of the sky; with it began the present alphabetical system (see stellar classification) of classifying stars by spectral type. The catalog, named in honour of American astronomer Henry Draper and financed through an endowment by his widow, was compiled at the Harvard College Observatory under the direction of Edward Charles Pickering, mostly by Annie Jump Cannon and Antonia Caetana Maury. It was published first in a preliminary version in 1890, listing 10,351 stars, and then in sections, from 1918 to 1924, listing 225,300. Extensions of the catalog published in 1949 raised the number of stars included to 359,083.

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