Luyten's White Dwarf Catalogues

The catalogue was originally published in two booklets, one in 1970 (3035 entries), and the part II in 1977 (3511 entries). As a guideline for the inclusion of stars into this catalogue, the author has used stars which present minimal values of the combined proper motions - magnitude quantity H defined by H = m + 5 + 5 log {mu} ({mu} is the proper motion in arcsec/yr) which show the minimal H values according to the color class: b 13.5 f 15.5 g-k 17.7 a 14.4 g 17.0 k 18.3 with the following exceptions: a) evidence from photoelectric colors or spectra indicate the object is a degenerate star (e.g. LB 3303) or b) the object is close to the antapex (which is the case for many stars at alpha=21h and delta =+42{deg}, plate 234).

The bluest stars (color classes b or a) will probably prove to be genuine white dwarfs; probably no more than 40% of the yellower objects (color class k) will prove to be genuine degenerates.