FIRST RESULTS OF HERSTMONCEUX PARALLAX PROGRAM

Parallaxes of 24 stars have been determined from observations made with the 26-inch refractor at Herstmonceux. The results are in the mean two to five times more accurate, depending on right ascension, than the parallaxes determined with the same telescope at Greenwich. Agreement with parallaxes recently determined at the Van Vleck Observatory is good. Twenty of the stars are in Gliese's catalogue of nearby stars, mostly without trigonometric parallaxes at the time of its original compilation. As would be expected from the nature of the Gliese catalogue, the Herstmonceux mean absolute parallaxes are significantly smaller than those adopted by Gliese, and the stars classified as main-sequence are significantly brighter in the mean than average main-sequence stars. An important systematic difference between parallaxes determined separately from right ascension and declination measures is noted, and it is suggested that this may be connected in origin with the well-known, zero-point differences between the parallax systems of different observatories. © 1973 Royal Astronomical Society. Provided by the NASA Astrophysics Data System.