23. Carte du Ciel

Extract

There seems to be a consensus of opinion that the useful life of the commission has come to an end with the achievement of the principal aim of the historical task of the Carte du Ciel, presenting an overall picture of the Heavens as to positions of the fixed stars up to a definite limiting magnitude. The French presidents in succession with great energy, supported by the IAU, succeeded in overcoming all obstacles and in finishing the printed Astrographic Catalogue. Remaining tasks of deriving definitive plate constants, eventually deriving reliable proper motions of all stars in the programme evidently rests with individual observatories or at other commissions of the Union within their proper frame of activities.

Following a suggestion presented at the meeting of the Executive Committee in September 1969 a decision was reached to abolish the Commission 23 proper by merging it with Commission 24 (Stellar parallax and proper motion), and a working group in the latter commission would become a suitable means to continue work on data furnished by the Astrographic Catalogue.

Several of those observatories still in possession of Carte du Ciel-astrographs are going on with proper motion (p.m.) work in their zones or are preparing to do so. The application of the astrographs to the programme of attachment of stars to galaxies according to A. N. Dejč’s method is in progress.