Star Catalogues
lists of catalogues of the stars arranged according to their positions, generally their right ascensions and declinations, though some of the early catalogues were arranged according to the positions in STAR CHAMBER latitude and longitude. The early catalogues, and those accompanying uranometries, are arranged in constellations, and then in the order of position under each constellation. This system was of course fit only for the few stars visible with the naked eye. Modern catalogues resulting from accurate determinations of position give the places to hundredths of a second of time and tenths of a second of arc. Such catalogues also give the precession of each star in right ascension and declination, in order to reduce the position to any desired epoch, for the places of the stars are always changing, or rather the co-ordinate plane to which they are referred is always shifting its position on account of the precession of the equinoxes. The epoch of a star catalogue is the date to which its places refer, and is always taken as the beginning of some year, generally some decade or quarter of a century.