Radial velocities of NGP wide binaries

The radial velocities have a typical precision of 0.2-0.3km/s. New spectral types and distances estimates are presented for 120 of the stars in the sample.

We have considered all pairs of stars with angular separations between 1 and 600arcsec, and find 11 candidate pairs with velocity differences less than 1.5km/s. We estimate that 4 or 5 of the 11 candidate pairs are actually bound binaries, but none with separations larger than 0.1pc. The constraints imposed by these results on the actual distribution of wide binaries in the Galaxy should now be reanalyzed.