and Charles E. Worley's research while affiliated with United States Naval Observatory and other places

The Fifth Catalog of Orbits of Visual Binary Stars continues the series of compilations of visual binary star orbits published by Finsen, Worley, and Heintz from the 1930s to the 1980s. As of 2001 January 1, the new catalog includes 1465 orbits of 1430 systems. All orbits have been graded as in earlier catalogs, although the grading scheme has been modified to be more objective. Ephemerides are given for all orbits, as are plots including all associated data in the Washington Double Star 2001.0 database. A subset of orbits useful for scale calibration is also presented. This catalog is one of four USNO double star catalogs to be included on a new CD-ROM.

The results of 1314 speckle interferometric observations of 625 binary stars, ranging in separation from 02 to 52 with a limiting secondary magnitude of V = 11, are tabulated. These observations were obtained using the 66 cm refractor at the US Naval Observatory in Washington, DC, with an intensified CCD detector. This is the fourth in a series of papers presenting measures obtained with this equipment and covers the period 1997 January 1 through December 31. Random errors for all measures are estimated to be 18 mas in separation and 057/ρ in position angle, where ρ is the separation in arcseconds.

The Washington Double Star Catalog (WDS), maintained by the US Naval Observatory, is the world's principal database of astrometric double and multiple star information. The WDS contains positions (J2000), discoverer designations, epochs, position angles, separations, magnitudes, spectral types, proper motions, and, when available, Durchmusterung numbers and notes for the components of 84,486 systems based on 563,326 means. The current version, available on-line, is updated nightly. This catalog is one of four USNO double star catalogs to be included on a new CD-ROM. A brief summary and statistical analysis of the contents of the catalog are presented.

Position angles and separations resulting from 2578 speckle interferometric observations of 590 binary stars are tabulated. This is the third in a series of papers presenting measures obtained using the 66 cm refractor at the US Naval Observatory in Washington, DC, and covers the period from 1995 June through 1996 December. Program stars range in separation from 02 to 43, with a limiting magnitude of V = 11. Random errors are estimated to be 17.0 mas in separation and 056/ρ in position angle, where ρ is the separation in arcseconds. These are the first results acquired using an improved intensified CCD detector. The new detector, in concert with an intensity-filtering technique applied in software, has permitted a 1 mag increase in dynamic range, to 3.5 mag, for pairs separated by about 2''. The instrumentation and calibration are briefly described, with an emphasis on the characteristics of the new detector. The software filter used to increase the dynamic range is also described.