Orbital binary stars are essential objects for determining dynamical and physical properties of stars through a combined analysis of photometric and astrometric data. We compiled a set of orbital binaries with known trigonometric parallaxes and orbits of high quality, using data from current versions of the Catalogue of Orbits and Ephemerides of Visual Double Stars and the Sixth Catalog of Orbits of Visual Binary Stars as well as including updated information from WDS and SIMBAD. We constructed distributions of orbital binaries among dynamical mass, period, semi-major axis, and eccentricity of systems, which characterize the set. Some problems related to the parameterization of orbital binaries are also discussed in the paper.
Visual binary stars are the most abundant class of observed binaries. The most comprehensive list of data on visual binaries compiled recently by cross-matching the largest catalogues of visual binaries allowed a statistical investigation of observational parameters of these systems. The dataset was cleaned by correcting uncertainties and misclassifications, and supplemented with available parallax data. The refined dataset is free from technical biases and contains 3676 presumably physical visual pairs of luminosity class V with known angular separations, magnitudes of the components, spectral types, and parallaxes. We also compiled a restricted sample of 998 pairs free from observational biases due to the probability of binary discovery. Certain distributions of observational and physical parameters of stars of our dataset are discussed.
Information on interstellar extinction and dust properties may be obtained from modern large photometric surveys data. Virtual Observatory facilities allow users to make a fast and correct cross-identification of objects from various surveys. It yields a multicolor photometry data on detected objects and makes it possible to estimate stellar parameters and calculate interstellar extinction. A 3D extinction map then can be constructed. The method was applied to 2MASS, SDSS, GALEX and UKIDSS surveys. Results for several high-latitude areas are obtained, compared with independent sources and discussed here.
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