UCAC2 Catalogue

Proper motions and photometry are provided for all stars. Positions and proper motions are on the ICRS (International Celestial Reference System) and given at the epoch J2000.0. The UCAC2 has a number of major differences with respect to UCAC1.

These differences include: - much larger sky coverage - reduced systematic errors of CCD observations - positions given at a standard epoch (J2000.0) - the addition of several new catalogs for improved proper motions - photometry in the J, H, and K_s bands from the 2MASS project Additional details of the data are found in Sections 3, 4, and 5 of the "readme.txt" file. UCAC2 is the last intermediate data release before the final, all sky catalog will be constructed.

Observations will end around mid 2004; the final catalog is expected out in 2005. The UCAC project, observations, and first data release are described in detail in the paper Zacharias et al. AJ 120, 2131 (2000). Versions of that and other related papers are placed on the UCAC Web page (ad.usno.navy.mil/ucac/).

The paper describing UCAC2 is in preparation (AJ, 2003); some further details can be found in the "readme.txt" file. Notice: The data are freely available; however, any publication utilizing these data should make proper reference to the project and papers.